


When The Bough Breaks

by bartagnanz



Series: In Your Heart Shall Burn [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Blood and Torture, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Drama & Romance, Espionage, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Fake Defection, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Alternating, POV Third Person, Post-Movie 2: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Principle plot begins chapter three, Unbreakable Vow (Harry Potter), Undercover as a Couple, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2020-06-29 08:08:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 88,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19826020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bartagnanz/pseuds/bartagnanz
Summary: Newt and Tina encounter seemingly happy circumstances with decidedly disastrous timing. Will they weather the storm that follows? Will their differences prevent them from what Dumbledore has planned?A tale of false defection in which a broken Newt and Tina must pretend to be in league with Grindelwald.





	1. Chapter 1

* * *

  
When Tina refuses her favourite drink during a celebratory night out, Newt doesn’t think anything of it. Just Tina being a health conscious and altogether conscientious Auror. He doesn’t blink when she turns her nose up at an odour no one else could quite smell and he shrugs when she finches at Dougal jumping up on her excitedly once they arrive home in the wee hours of the morning.

It’s only when he’s awoken later by sounds of her wretching in the en suite that he puts two and two together.

“Why haven’t you told me?”

Tina is brushing her teeth when she shrugs, glancing back at him in the mirror. “There’s no point when I know what you’ll say.”

“And what is that?”

“Get rid of it.” She drops her toothbrush down into its holder far harder than it deserved. The resentment is etched on her words and it stings, Picket withdrawing into his unruly mop of hair. Whilst he had disregarded other telltale signs, her drastic shift in mood was something he _had_ noticed, chiefly because he was frequently on the receiving end of it - something that now made all the sense in the world. The back of his head still ached from the jinxed teacup she’d propelled in his general direction the previous night.

Newt sighs, rubbing at said tender spot. “Tina, you can’t seriously be considering anything else.” But of course she was. “You know you couldn’t go through with adoption,” because he knows his Tina and he knows her heart. She’d take one look at that baby and fall in love.

She turns to look at him with those eyes that could bring even the highest of men to their knees. The eyes he just knows their child will inherit and make him forget to breathe. And to be true, he wouldn’t be able to sign those papers either.

“Who said abortion is any easier?” She leans back against the sink, her arms folded under her breasts. It’s her stance of relaxed defiance; an indication that tells Newt she won’t give in so easily. It makes him wonder just how long she’d known about this development; how recent and just how much she’d thought about it, considered the possibilities, weighed their options and, somewhere along the way, gotten herself attached. How much longer still would she have kept it from him? Until she was in labour?

If only he’d paid more attention to the subtle ways in which she was changing. Perhaps then he might’ve been able to dissuade her from committing herself to a future that could never be, however often a small child with freckled skin and the darkest eyes frequented his dreams.

“Tina, please,” he implores, hating himself for asking her to do this.

She has unfolded her arms now and is standing before him, her hands on his chest, her eyes pleading with hope and it takes all his strength not to touch her in all the ways that led to their current predicament. “No one needs to know it’s yours. No one but us.” She is almost pleading now and it hurts him that she feels she must.

It could work and he can tell she has pondered it at length - she was nothing if not fastidious. If only she’d apply her strategic impassiveness to this too.

Irregardless, Newt knows something Tina doesn’t and for any of their efforts to hide the child’s true paternity, the enemy would know.

And Newt refused to put Tina and any child of theirs in Grindelwald’s sights.

“What about when the child is old enough to wonder? Are you going tell him that your elusive friend who lives in a case because he faked his own death is his father?” He doesn’t tell her he wants to be known as ‘Papa’ from the start because he is surprised by it himself. Not to mention that it’s simply not realistic and if she wasn’t going to be, it was his responsibility to shoulder that burden. He could not let his mind wander to that which she’d already given her heart.

“We’ll cross that bridge when w-“

“The bridge was burned the moment we decided to sleep together,” he interrupts, frustrated. It sounds harsh but it was true. It was futile to avoid eventualities and this, he realises, was one of them. They hadn’t exactly been careful. She hadn’t been taking any preventative potion and he hadn't kept a tight rein on his inhibitions. 

Still, he couldn’t find it in himself to regret any of it. Though, he omits that from the conversation as well.

“We are not doing this. We can’t.” She had to accept that. End of discussion

The wounded flare in her eyes however, said otherwise. “This is not your decision, Newt.”

With a wave of her hand, Tina slams the door in his face and he’s left with a sore nose to accompany the headache.

He leans back against the door and slides down onto the floor. The ever watchful demiguise joins him shortly after, his small paw pressed to the door, blue eyes flashing.

”if only you could tell me what you see,” Newt sighs, followed by a wince when he hears Tina vomit again.

...

Two weeks pass with no further mention of the elephant in the room and it served no effort to defuse the tension surrounding it. Contrarily, it only seemed to grow with the gradual swell of Tina’s belly.

No one at the ministry has commented thus far but Newt knows people are starting to suspect. It was difficult not to notice when she insisted on wearing her regular form fitting clothing at the office. 

Thankfully his contacts at the Daily Prophet were able to avert the wandering eyes of the all too-eager reporters, thirsty for a story which may lead to questions about himself and Tina. It is best his name was kept out of the papers entirely, lest they attract unsavoury attention.

Although he was among those who made no remarks, he thinks she does it to draw not their attention but his, to the small but conspicuous change in her body - the body he knows better than his own - to urge some paternal need or longing in him.

He wishes he could say it wasn’t working.

A couple days after their initial argument at the threshold of the en suite, she’d left a folder in his shed pertaining to MACUSA’’s correspondence with the Ministry in all things operation ‘Dead Scamander’. Tucked gently into the folds between two pages was the grainy, obscured, black and white square that would begin to destabilise any and all grievances he had on the subject.

He stares at it longer than he ought to before securing it in the desk drawer to his right, among half-empty bottles he throws out that very same evening by a sudden compulsion to do better; to be better.

It's hidden beneath the first photo of Tina he’d cut out of an early issue in ‘27, alongside a jewel encrusted rattle Niffler had retrieved from his pouch and gifted him. 

Much like with said animated sonograph, Newt would find his gaze drifting toward Tina’s middle whenever his guard slipped in the days to follow. He hates himself for forcing her to go it alone for the past few weeks and decides one morning of many that, like everything else, that enough was enough - they were in it together.

They could make it work. They deserved that much. It was worth the risk.

He calls to her from his shed into her office, the lid of his case slightly ajar to let her know what he’d decided when a blonde, high-heeled vagrant stumbles in.

Turns out it’s her long since disowned sister Queenie, whose sudden reappearance starts with an emotional battle over lost time and ends with Tina on the receiving end of the Cruciatus Curse.

She’s in shock and he’s pouring dittany onto the bloodied wounds, telling her she’s going to be okay and he’ll get them both through it.

“Please,” he implores to what remained of Queenie’s love for her sister to let them disapparate to St. Mungo’s. “She’s pregnant.”

Grindelwald seems genuinely remorseful in his apology that follows but he still doesn’t let them go. For all Newt's efforts to stop the bleeding, Tina's clothes grow stained and heavy against his hands as she gradually weakens in his arms. The wounds would not close.

“Newt,” she barely manages, “the baby...”

“I know. You’re gonna be okay, just trust me. I’ve got you, Tina”

He hears his brother’s confusion behind him, Credence holding a shaking wand to his throat, “baby? What baby?” but he ignores it. Tina needs him.

The cavalry of aurors eventually arrives and as soon as Grindelwald has left with Queenie, Credence and the knowledge of his continued existence, Newt shoves his brother out of the way and gathers Tina up in his arms. He’d have carried her into the hospital if the healers hadn’t got to her first.

As he fills in her details on the medical registration form, his hand shakes when he checks the box marked ‘pregnant’. Thankfully, Theseus is too busy writing an owl to their respective ministry’s regarding the attack. What was to be done now that Grindelwald knew he was alive? Would Dumbledore be able to break the blood pact without the intel he gathered as his spy? Was there any chance of defeating the enemy? Did any of it matter whilst Tina lay battered and blooded; their baby teetering on the edge of birth and death...

Newt’s thoughts drift off.

“Goldstein?” The chief healer announces hours later.

Theseus is out of his seat quickly but Newt is faster. “How is she?”

“She’ll recover.” He feels the relief start to overwhelm him but he couldn’t quite breathe just yet: “And the baby?”

“Are you the father?”

He can feel Theseus’s eyes on him and he settles for “i’m her friend” instead.

He hears the words “I’m very sorry,” and his heart plummets in his chest.

The healer tells them in which room they could find her but he doesn’t hear it. His world had stopped spinning.

He feels a firm hand on his shoulder, lurching him back to reality. “Don’t worry, Newt I’ll break the news to her...”

Newt shrugs his brother off, shaking his head. She should hear it from no one but him.

The next day, when Newt returns to her side after bathing and changing out of his bloodied clothes, he hopes she’ll have finally woken up but he dreads having to face her all the same. He knows she’ll be broken by this just as he knows she’ll blame him for having caused it.

She tells him she doesn’t want to see him and asks him to leave. She’d never before looked at him with such pure distrust and indifference. It feels far worse than anything they’d endured since Grindelwald declared war on Muggles and her sister and Credence both aligned theirselves with him. Worse still than when they were forced to fake his death and forego seeing each other for over a year.

“I wanted that baby too, Tina.” But of course she doesn’t believe him - he never got the chance to tell her. It sickens him to know that she thinks he wanted nothing to do with it. That he didn’t yearn for her each night they slept with a wall between them. That he didn’t imagine feeling their child beneath her skin, sharing in the wonder that was the life they created together. That he didn’t love the child that could’ve been if he had protected her better.

Later that night, he watches as she prepares to leave London, crying as she entered the hearth to floo back to New York. She doesn’t see that he is crying too.

He wants to run into the flames and follow her, make his penance and, if she should let him, hold her so that they might grieve together. He knows he doesn’t deserve to share that with her, but he wants for it nonetheless. He wants her to stay with him.

The green flames erupt within the fireplace and leaves behind a foul aftertaste of despair and regret in the ash that remained.

Newt sinks to his knees and sobs, choking on his pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I understand how dark this first chapter was but not to fret, it’s not all doom and gloom. Please stick around and hopefully you’ll enjoy!
> 
> follow me on twitter: bartagnanz


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: smut in the middle of this chapter.

He writes to her every other day since she left and although silence is always the answer, it doesn’t deter him from trying again when the owl returns with no reply.

At night, after his feeding rounds, when he’s left alone with his thoughts, reaching into his side drawer for what remained of some forgotten fire whisky, throwing back its contents, he’ll reach for the newspaper cut out just to watch her smile. Often five or six times in a row. During the nights he’s so far gone, he’ll write another again on the seventh.

“I miss you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Forgive me.”

“I love you.”

“Come back to me.”

He knows she’ll be able to detect the extra gulp of alcohol in the crack and slur of his words, the careless smudges of ink surrounding a vaguely intelligible lament. Part of him hopes she does, that she’ll care enough about him to respond.

She doesn’t.

Once her pigeonhole at the Ministry had stopped taking owls altogether, he knew she wasn't coming back anytime soon.

Theseus tells him he gets bimonthly reports from her regarding their continued investigative correspondence at MACUSA. When Newt asks whether or not Tina has mentioned him, the pity in his brother’s eyes answers before he can voice the words.

He remembers she’d recalled to him her own experience with a similar situation two years previously – waiting, hoping for a letter that had apparently never been sent.

_**Two years ago…** _

Theseus’s head throbbed from watching Tina pace relentless between his office and hers, adjoined as they were while she served as MACUSA’s Auror ambassador to Britain.

“Tina, please...” he started, squeezing his eyes shut as he so often did in his brother’s presence. “The owl won’t arrive any faster than it’s going to.”

Tina huffed in response, the anxiety rendering her mute.

He couldn’t necessarily blame her. After all they’d been waiting two days for word from Newt or Dumbledore regarding their next move against Grindelwald. The decision they would make would alter their lives for the foreseeable future. It would mean the difference between success or defeat in the war to come.

If time was of the essence, as Dumbledore often liked to remind them, Tina thought they could at least show some small essence of punctuality. Her nerves wound tighter the longer they waited.

Eventually, a small owl carrying an over large scroll whizzed through Tina’s office, hooting triumphantly at having successfully delivered his load.

“I’ll get that,” Theseus offered before Tina broke the wax seal and began to read. 

Theseus watched her face for any indication as to what the letter contained. As it was, her Auror training taught her to remain impassive when emotion threatened to overtake reason. As such, he was left waiting until she handed the parchment to him.

She did so lifelessly.

_Dear Miss Goldstein and Mr Scamander_

_I’ve taken it upon myself to inform you that our mutual friend will be unable to write for quite some time due to a mission he is undertaking on my behalf. Were I to divulge the nature of said mission to either of you, I would not only be risking your lives but disobeying his request that you both remain detached from any and all matters pertaining to his quest._

_For now, and for an indefinite period of time, I ask that you stick to the plan and continue your lives as normal, sans our friend._

_Forever in your debt,_

_A.P.W.B.D_

_P.S. He sends his love and his promise to return this time._

Although it’s a promise Tina knows is unlike the first he’d made on the docks in the December of ’26, she fears that, despite his conviction, he won’t be able to keep this one either. 

Theseus looks over at Tina, staring down at her empty hands, recalling the last time she touched freckled skin and regretted not committing how it felt to memory.

“He’s not dead, Tina.” As far as the world knew, Newt Scamander had perished in an altercation with one of Grindelwald’s followers. In reality, Dumbledore had laid the foundations for an opportunity to gain intelligence from within the enemy’s ranks, in which Newt assumed the identity of the dark wizard who had died during his attack. He was alive and doing his part. Tina needed to remember that.

“He might as well be.”

In the weeks and months to follow, the deeper he seemed to be buried. No coded message from Newt came to quell the ache within her. No update from Dumbledore about their ‘mutual friend’ arrived to dispel any nightmare that plagued her.

Her sister and her lover were gone.

She was alone, suspended hopelessly in a world fraught with a constant impending doom.

_**Present day** _

That separation, however, was not caused by Tina and she had been able to find solace in the promise of his return. Newt, on the other hand, was afforded no such assurance. He didn’t deserve it.

Seven months after her return to New York however, Theseus interrupts him during a secret meeting with Dumbledore that had run late into the evening. He notes the urgency on Theseus’ face and immediately excuses himself.

“She’s back in London,” he tells his little brother, handing over a small piece of parchment, upon which an address and other curious details were scrawled.

“Make my excuses,” it’s more of a grateful request than it sounded as he dashes for the nearest alley to disapparate. Dumbledore would understand.

He soon discovers that the address was an upscale venue in the West End. A charitable organisation hosting a contemporary masquerade ball for high profile investors and it just so happens, MACUSA’s department of international affairs had reached out to Tina; the presentable and pristine image of the American aurors to attend and represent their country.

Why she hadn’t informed him of this wasn’t difficult to guess. With Tina by his side, the stable image they presented was the saving grace of his reputation, particularly following the scandal of him faking his own death. Alone and adrift however, he served the cause better locked away in his case with his creatures.

There was also the larger, considerably more painful issue that urged her to cut all contact with him. The baby they mourned separately.

The event was in full-swing once he’d arrived in appropriate attire, a matte Venetian mask in black, on loan from his brother, seemed the only suitable choice for him and although he was thankful he would likely go unrecognised, it only made finding Tina that much more difficult.

There was a balcony overlooking the ballroom, from which he’d have a good vantage point if he were to find his auror before the night’s end. He seemed to have scanned the room thrice over with no sign of her until his eyes double take at the slender figure he knew better than any other. She was taller than most women and she’d chosen to wear a particularly captivating deep blue and golden number with a matching ornate mask. As such, even if he hadn’t been looking; even though he shouldn’t have been, he’d have noticed her anyway.

The large expanse of the ballroom seemed to blur out of focus around her. The music became a soft murmur in the distance. It’s when her back stiffens and she turns slowly in his direction, Newt thinks that perhaps all else faded around him too.

They lock eyes and although he’s too far to see the look in hers, he knows she’s not happy to see him.

_Of course she isn’t, you idiot._

She sets her drink down atop the nearest table, makes her excuses to those she had been conversing with and retreats into a darkened corner of the room.

Newt follows and it leads him into a secluded salon, lit only by the dancing lights from the party, diffused by the sheer curtain at the threshold.

“Tina?”

“Mr. Scamander.” Naturally, he sighs. 

She’s seated in the far corner, the few small jewels on her mask divulging her position in the dark.

“Come out, I want see you.” He needs to.

“Why are you here?”

She has got to be joking. “Merlin’s beard, Tina! You’ve been gone for months, you left me without so much as a by your leave.” He wants to tell her that although Grindelwald’s looming shadow had passed for the time being, life without her was far more difficult than any harrowing task Dumbledore expected of him. He wants to tell her he’d endure the latter again if it meant she never leaves. 

“So?” He can hear the shrug of indifference in her voice and it infuriates him. But more than that, it scares him. This doesn’t sound like her; his Tina.

“So, Tina, I haven’t heard from you in all that time. I love you - we’re a family.”

He’s closer to her now and hears her scoff. It was quite the testimonial coming from him. “I’m not so sure.” 

Had she read any of his letters? The half-soaked, ink-stained pleas in which he reverberated his love for her and the wish to take it all back, to do things differently. To be honest and tell her he wanted the baby just as much as she did. That his fear for her safety had muddled his vision and blinded him to the possibility of a brighter future. A future he hoped was not lost to them, if she should have the heart to trust him again – to believe every smudged word he sent across the sea.

“I missed you.” Although the masks obscured their faces, he can feel her heady breath against his skin, as if to say “I see you” - he couldn’t hide from her and for once, he’s glad of it. She’ll know that, for all his lies, his sincerity rings true here.

“Prove it.” It’s a challenge. One she doesn’t expect him to rise to. He detects a familiar note in her voice, one he is surprised to hear tonight of all nights. But it spoke volumes. 

She always was terribly contrary. And he didn’t have the sense to question it at that moment, too eager to feel her touch again, heedless of the inevitable regret she might feel.

For the first time in the better part of a year, he’s close enough to see the brown that is so exclusive to her; his anchor to reality leering at him now with those come hither eyes.

She needn’t ask him twice.

Before she can catch her breath , there’s a hand on the nape of her neck and another splayed against the bare skin of her back as his mouth moves to plunder hers, crushing their lithe bodies together, finally and at last.

The chain around his chest loosens, the tension throughout his body evaporating in a heated frenzy as he kisses her, long and deep. It’s gentle and indulgent and familiar. It’s selfish of him but he indulges in every second of it. He was so sure he’d forgotten the feeling in those nights he spent watching her photo move longingly, but as her lips open to accommodate his tongue and her hands push at his clothing, it feels natural in a way nothing had felt for a very long time.

Ferocity made her insatiable and it only served to urge him on. The hand on her neck reaches up into her hair, freeing it from its gilded confines. It’s no effort to lift her against the nearest wall, gathering her dress up at her waist and thrusting deep inside her.

Tina braces her shoulders against the wall, grinding down to engulf him further with each snap of his hips. On the edge of his senses are her breathy moans. Her nails dig into his shoulder and scalp, forcing a furious pace he could barely maintain when tension starts to swell at the base of his spine. Her fingers turn to claws as she climaxes around him, her inner walls gripping him with a vice-like intensity until he too follows her over that familiar, natural precipice.

Newt lifts his head from the pulse point at her throat and he swears he could see her smile in the soft gloom. He hopes that she feels as whole as he does in that moment.

Then he notices her tears and the pain within them. It was never going to be that easy.

“You changed your hair,” he notes when his hand finds its way back into the dark strands so unlike his own.

“It’s not all that’s changed.” There’s that tone of indifference in her voice again. Though now he can feel the quickened beating of her heart between their bodies, dispelling any doubts he had regarding how she cared for him still.

For all her bravado and in spite of herself, she missed him too.

“Come home with me?” He knows its bold and that he sounds needy, imploring her like this. He doesn't care. He was never too proud to admit the truth.

With his hand on her right hip, his thumb slides over the slightly raised skin of her abdomen, reminding him that she deserves only honesty from him now.

Wiping at her wet cheeks, Tina disentangles herself from him. Newt’s suit jacket and dress shirt were shoved aside for their excursion in the dark and as such, were no more wrinkled than they had been. Her dress however, was creased in incriminating ways.

Their eyes meet and it seems to him, in that subtle afterglow of their love-making, she considers it. Although, no sooner has her own hand drifted toward the scarred skin of her belly and she stops herself, reminded of why she’d left him in the first place: “Good night, Newt.”

He's forced to watch her walk away this time.

The next day when he steps out of the elevator onto the foyer of his brother’s department, Theseus informs him that he could take the rest of the week off – he had more important things to attend to.

"What’s this about?" and his answer comes not from his brother, but from the owl by the pigeonhole assigned to Tina.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be told from Tina’s POV as she deals with the aftermath of her impulsive behaviour and the strength of her feelings for Newt. The principle narrative of this story will also begin, with Dumbledore’s wild plans. Can you hear the bells?


	3. Chapter 3

_What were you thinking?!_ Tina scolds herself, tearing off her mask and slamming it down on the nearest countertop. _Letting him touch you like that! Touching him like you missed him! “_ Idiot!” She exclaims with a deep groan, one hand palming her forehead upon which beads of sweat remained from her excursion in the dark.

Her fingers drift down to the right side of her face, stroking the skin left tingling from the memory of his mouth. It transports her to a time on the quay in Manhattan, when timid eyes found her own, reaching out to caress the skin at her ear and promising to return with his first edition. Tina blinks as she feels the tears start to swell once more. This reminder was too sweet to acknowledge and she curses herself again for indulging in it.

“Who does he think he is anyway,” she murmurs into the empty room, “following me like that.”

Of course his brother had been the culprit, ever hopeful as he had been in his letters in which he implored her to return for love of his younger brother. Little did he know any love she might’ve felt for Newt had been forever eclipsed and rendered moot by the pain encompassing her heart. The ache that lingered still due to his part in it.

She began to undress, attempting to ignore the sensitivity of the areas of skin to which he’d paid particularly close attention. No, she refused to afford it any further thought. Her impulses had been the result of pure basal instinct and were not, as the Scamander brothers would have themselves believe, born out of a desperate need to love and be loved in return by the only man she’d once deemed worthy. The one her battered and bruised soul called out to since separating from its other seven months ago.

Instinct, she decides, and nothing more. How could there be? There was nothing left. It was gone. 

With her night clothes having replaced the shimmering ball gown she decides now was far too revealing after all, Tina slumps down onto the edge of the mattress, groaning again in frustration. If only she could convince herself. Perhaps she might’ve believed it if her heart hadn’t bellowed the dishonesty in it when she buried her hands in his hair as he throbbed deep inside her. She couldn't deny that she hadn’t felt quite so whole in months.

She sighs heavily, the tension - the sex - weighing her body down. She needed sleep and the peaceful silence that slumber would bring.

“Nox,” she utters toward the lamp the landlord had inconveniently placed across the room, opposite the bed. The light extinguishes without the aid of her wand and her eyes welcome the lulling embrace of night.

When she meets Theseus the next morning at the Ministry, she doesn’t know whether to hex or throttle him as he beamed brightly at her across the emerald fire.

“Welcome back, Auror Goldstein.” His greeting is as genuine as the soft smile on his face, though it was asking to be wiped off in true no-maj style. It makes her think of Jacob and if it had been thoughtless of her to not invite him to join in her London.

A year had passed since he had seen his friend and Tina knows, without having to ask, that Newt misses him too. The countless letters he’d sent her way in the past several months had often asked after the baker himself. Partially, Tina suspects, in an effort to compel her to reply.

With the crippling heartache and what small measure of pride she had left, she’d neglected any such response and instead offered Newt’s address to Jacob so that the two men might write one another without her feeling akin to some glorified messenger owl.

“Morning,” she grumble, falling into step beside Theseus as he leads the way to their offices.

“You’ll find everything as you left it,” he tells her, turning a corner, his perfectly waxed shoes squeaking slightly against the black-tiled floor. “You’ll be receiving an owl from Mr. Graves shortly. He and President Picquery have devised a plan of action with myself and the Minster now that you’re reinstated as ambassador.” 

They arrive at the door of her office upon which her full name and job title was engraved. The crack in the distressed glass behind the E of her middle name remained, thrusting the memory of the night she’d been ambushed by Grindelwald, Credence and, regrettably, her own sister upon her.

Blessedly, she didn’t remember much from that night, owing to the effects of the torture curse. She could not however, forget the mass of blood pooling around her. So much blood - too much of it to obscure the memory of the agony that followed.

Theseus opens the door for her, snapping her back to reality before the dark ruminations overtake her. “You still haven’t told me why I’ve been sent back,” Tina adds, stepping over the threshold into her home away from New York she hadn’t realised she missed until that moment. Any trace of the horror she’d endured within was gone, leaving in its wake something only slightly foul; something too small to measure.

It was a relief, given she’d be spending an extended period of time there. For what, she waited for Theseus to divulge.

“The owl will explain... in part.”

“And the rest?” She is wary and knows he can sense it. She has every right to be.

“Patience, Tina.” He advises as he reaches the door separating their offices and swinging it open, giving her a view of the corridor beyond, at the end of which were the pigeonholes assigned to each ministry worker in that department. “I realise you don’t do terribly well with waiting, but you’ll find plenty to keep yourself occupied in the meanwhile.” He smirks and she could’ve sworn she saw the flash of a wink on its tail before he walks away.

She thinks nothing of it until she’s crossing her office to shut the door he’d annoyingly left ajar, and then she realises where the impetuous glint in Theseus’s eye had come from. 

Past his office and down the corridor, she sees him advance on none other than the younger of the Scamander brothers who had just stepped off the elevator, head low and shoulders hunched, but his left leg leading his right as always.

“Damn you, Theseus.” She exhales and closes the door quickly before Newt could see her.

How was she to face him after her behaviour at the ball? Would he expect things to return to how they had been a year ago? Could she bear to hurt him as she pushed him away again? She groans and lets her weight pull her down into the chair by her desk, much as she’d deflated the night before. _It’s all my fault_. _If only I kept my damn hands to myself!_

 _But you missed him,_ reminded the nudge that felt an awful lot like her sister. _And you know, deep down, it wasn’t his fault. He deserves better than this._

“Don’t read my mind,” she gently reprimands, more out of habit than anything else. 

Newt wasn’t the only person she missed.

To his credit, and Tina’s surprise, he hadn’t sought her out immediately. A few hours had ticked by and it wasn’t until twilight dwindled dim through the artificial windows that she heard the conspicuous, tentative knock on her office door.  
  
She could see his finger trace the crack of the E as he waited for permission to enter.  
  
It was her undoing.  
  
“I’m a little busy,” lies Tina. She wasn’t ready to face him because she knows she isn’t strong enough to stop herself breaking down and falling into his arms. She doesn’t believe he is either.  
  
“It’s just...” she hears him start, his voice wavering in his throat. “I mean I - I thought you’d want your owl.” The one from Graves she had been expecting, no doubt. Somewhere between thoughts of Queenie and Newt, she’d quite forgotten about it.  
  
She considers her options a moment too long because Newt speaks again. “I’ll just slip it under the door, shall I?” And he’s already bending down to do so when Tina gets up and throws open the door faster than either of them expected.  
  
“Hi.”  
  
“Hello,” Newt smiles meekly, stealing glances up at her face every few seconds, but electing to use the unkempt curls of his fringe to hide behind. There came a chirp from inside his breast pocket and the head of the bowtruckle pops out. “Hi, Pickett,” Tina beams ever so slightly, her mood lifting significantly to see that he was still using Newt as his own personal wand-wood tree. She found comfort in the fact not everything had changed.

Pickett, contrary to Tina, was not especially delighted to meet again as he begun chirping away in great vehemence. Sounds she could only attribute to fury and great frustration.

“Now that’s enough of your cheek, Pickett,” berates Newt, opening up his pocket for Pickett to climb back into. “That was not Tina’s fault.” 

Tina looks back at him. “What wasn’t my fault?”

“Oh!” He chuckles awkwardly, his cheeks flushed, avoiding her eyes again. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Not to worry. You know what he’s like,” laughing again, hands shifting against his sides. He was feeling as nervous as she was.

She nods, humouring him. He does too and the silence feeds the tension wafting in the air around them.

“I’ve got your letter-” 

“Newt, about last night-”

They say simultaneously, both trying to break the silence. Their eyes meet and without speaking, they’re both recalling that moment in Paris, deep in the shadowed halls of the French Ministry’s records room, reconnecting after nine long months of rejected travel permits and unfortunate misunderstandings. 

The timing had been wrong then too.

Newt seems to have noticed Tina’s gaze had dropped, her expression sullen because he clears his throat and hands her the letter, “here you are.”

She takes it slowly, prolonging the moment she hadn’t wanted to begin in the first place. She could feel her inhibitions waning as they’d done so hastily in his presence the night before. _Get it together,_ she urges herself, j _ust tell him_ -

“Thank you.”

He’s hiding behind his hair again, eyes level with the locket hanging beneath her breast bone, though she could tell by the vacant gaze that he wasn't really seeing it.

“What were you about to say?” He asks, and when her brow furrows in confusion he adds, “about last night...”

The words are as heavy as they had been on her tongue, fringed with prudence and a wariness so as not to overstep.

“Yes.” Tina nods, straightening her back in a way that tells him she means business. “I wanted to apologise. It was crude and terribly reckless of me. I should not have encouraged it and I regr-”

“Please don’t,” Newt interjects.

“What?”

“I’m sorry...” he trails off clumsily, “what I mean to say is pl-please don’t regret it.”

Tina opens her mouth to speak but is interrupted again.

“Because I don’t.” He keeps his voice small, for fear of it breaking. “I don’t believe I could if I tried.” For all the timidity in the quake of his words, his gaze does not falter. Locking their eyes together so that she might understand the conviction with which he spoke. 

She does, and although she’d come close to telling him she regretted it, she was glad he didn’t let her finish. It would’ve been a lie. One of many she’d been telling herself over the better part of a year. The sincerity of the man before her was the reason she’d been unable to convince herself of any. _Damn you, Newton._

He doesn’t move to say anything else, for which Tina is grateful. There was plenty more to discuss about their sudden fumble in the dark, none of which she was ready to open. He doesn’t insist because the terms are, as always, her own. 

She shook her head and inhaled, closing her eyes briefly before standing aside, beckoning him into her office. The conversation shifting.

He complies and hovers by the enchanted window, peering out at the view he knows isn’t real, deep underground as they were. Easier than looking her way, Tina mused - she often felt too real; too bright for him to look at for very long. 

“Where’s your case?” Tina inquires, leaning back on the edge of her table, unaccustomed to seeing him without it. She began mindlessly breaking the wax seal on Graves’s letter, unfolding the parchment to scan its contents.

“At home. Bunty insisted. I got back rather late - or very early this morning...” he was fumbling again. “In any case she feels I’m no good to the creatures dozing off during feeding time.”

“I dare say that’s on me,” Tina adds, her forehead creasing in confusion as she read and reread the words in front of her. They made little sense, which was surprising given her superior’s shrewd appetite for coherence.

“Not quite. Though I fear she is of the same opinion.”

“Oh?” It sounds absentminded but she hangs on his every word. Something he knows not to doubt.

“She has experience, you see,” he explains, braving the room with slow, measured steps, “with my frequent landing home in a stupor, barely escaping a splinching... after you left.”

“She knows about... us then?” The penultimate word in her question was difficult to push past the lump in her throat.

“It would seem in one of the worse nights, I blurted out everything.”

Tina’s head snaps up. What had he said? “You told your assistant about... our business? About what happened?” Surely not. She must’ve heard him wrongly.

The startled expression he sends her way tells him she hasn’t. “Tina...” 

“You told her why I left?” The letter is forgotten and she’s wondering whether he’d been drinking again.

Newt shakes his head, his hands have left his pockets and are out in front of him, defensively. “I did not intend it. It was a mistake. A very stupid one at that.”

“That is not an excuse, Newt!” She felt the anger rise within her, “it was not your information to share.”

A beat.

The betrayal Tina felt was now visible In the green of Newt’s eyes. “It was my baby too, Tina.” His voice was smaller than it had been, but no the meeker for it. “It hurt me to lose it just as much as it hurt you.”

She scoffs, hands on her hips as she stormed around her desk, placing it between them. “You had a pretty strange way of showing it.” She deliberately ignores the bittersweet warmth that rose at hearing him say "my baby".

His mouth falls open slightly, a breath choking him. “You did not give me the chance!” She couldn’t deny the truth of these words. She hadn’t wanted to see him during her stay in St Mungo’s and it was less than a day following her discharge that she returned to New York, leaving him and their life in London behind. Nowhere in that time had she braved a look at his face, upon which she’d undoubtedly have seen the sorrow etched onto his features, the same way they marred her own.

Before she could say anything more, Theseus came barging through the door that joined their offices. The door nearly knocking Newt unconscious were he a few centimetres closer.

The dejected shadow on his face told Tina he wishes it had.

“Am I interrupting?” Theseus asks, noting their expressions and the distance between them.

“No.”

Whoever said it, neither of them cared.

“You’re both such bad liars,” the eldest Auror stared indignantly. “Well whatever you two were fighting about will have to wait. I have urgent news that demands prompt action.”

Newt starts for the door, excusing himself from what seemed to pertain to Aurors and them alone.

“Stay, little brother. You’re involved in this too.”

Newt and Tina share the briefest of glances at one another, falling away equally as fast. What should this have to do with him?

“Theseus, what’s this all about?” demands Tina impatiently.

“Didn’t you read the owl Graves sent?”

She nods. “Understood it? Not in the slightest.”

Theseus reaches out for the parchment. “It’s why you’re here, Tina. Why you’ve been sent back to us at the Ministry,” he starts. “You see, we have been in contact with one of Grindelwald’s closest acolytes.” This earns a slight gasp from Newt. Theseus ignores the bewildered gape on his brother’s face and continues. “Who is, as we have just today confirmed - via a willing administration of Veritaserum - seeking amnesty.”

Tina’s countenance must invite some humour because Theseus’s chest lurched slightly with a chuckle. “It would appear that good old Gellert’s charm seems to be wearing off.” Baring the blood-purist tyrant to the harsh light of reality.

“Surely this person knows amnesty cannot be granted for free.” Newt offers into the conversation.

His brother nods. “Willing, she also is, to assist our side in whatever way she is able.” He concludes, pulling out a chair on the visitor’s side of Tina’s office and lighting a cigar with the end of his wand. “That’s where you both come in.”

Tina doesn’t hear the latter of his words, instead preoccupied with the former. “She? Who is it?”

Theseus seems to consider her for a moment, a loaded gesture that does not go unnoticed by Newt who subconsciously moves towards her.

“It’s your sister, Tina.” 

She blinks. 

“Queenie wants to come home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I, unlike Queenie, am not skilled in the art of legilimency - I cannot know if y’all are enjoying this thus far. Please do let me know via a kudos and a comment if I should keep going. If so, in the next chapter Dumbledore will be briefing Newt and Tina about their task in full.


	4. Chapter 4

Tina’s initial shock at Theseus’s revelation regarding her sister was such that she couldn’t settle to anything the next day as she, Newt and Theseus made their way to Scotland by way of the Hogwarts Express.

“Too far to apparate and too conspicuous to fly,” reasoned Theseus as he handed them their tickets hours earlier. Adding that to floo was also out of the question, owing to the fact that the network was being watched.

Tina couldn’t say she minded. The rolling glens and arching valleys of the Highlands were rich in the sunlight as though freshly watered, the pastel blue of the sky mirrored itself in the gleaming water of the Black Lake, and the trees of the Forbidden Forest ruffled gently in response to the slight breeze in the air. Autumn was upon them, and as such the castle would still be empty of all students on their summer holidays, for which Tina was silently grateful.

What had once been sheer delight in the presence of any child, was now replaced by a sharp pang of what could’ve been. Their child might’ve attended Hogwarts, sorted into his father’s house of loyalty and kindness, or perhaps Gryffindor to suit his mother’s aptitude for competitiveness and being stubborn to a fault. She remembered Newt relaying some of the Sorting Hat’s most memorable songs from his schooldays. It makes her lips quirk slightly and her heart lift, until the reality of it all came crashing back in a wave of melancholy.

Thankfully, the explicit, feverish atmosphere of Queenie’s startling change of heart drove all of those miseries momentarily from her mind, allowing her to focus solely on whatever Dumbledore might have planned for she and Newt. Why it involved both of them, Tina could barely hazard a guess. 

Theseus, however, seemed intent upon distracting her from any singular thought as he had, during the journey north from King’s Cross, developed a particularly irritating habit of glancing knowingly between Newt and herself who sat together but with a full body’s length between them. They had not so much as glanced at one another since their argument in her office the previous evening.

Newt was looking fixedly at the floor as she preoccupied her own eyes with the passing view outside the carriage. The entire train ride was a subdued affair, the tension thicker than the pollen drifting in the summer breeze, causing Newt to sniff occasionally. Theseus found it easy to ignore as he set his quill to some paperwork, all the while humming triumphantly.

“What’s put you in such a good mood?” Newt finally asks indignantly after what seemed like an eternity of the same endless tune, peering up through the curls in front of his eyes.

“Hmm?” Theseus responds innocently, “I don’t know what you mean.” But the smile he tried to hide gives him away.

There was silence in the cabin except for the scratch of quill to parchment and Newt’s fidgeting. Both sounds seemed deafening to Tina whose insides were turning hotly with irrational anger. Every small movement, cough, sniff or sigh the two men made irritated her. She realises the irritability boiling within her had only partly sprung from Newt’s alcohol induced carelessness. Rather it burned chiefly due to that intrepid little green monster rearing its ugly head, coiling within her stomach. 

She never felt her and Newt’s bond threatened by his assistant, but she was aware of the woman’s blatant feelings for her employer, dangling from her sleeve as they were, ringing as though a bell the Niffler struggled to steal from an equally assertive cat. The woman’s affections were just as loud.

It was a wonder Newt couldn’t hear them.

Tina had known within moments of meeting Bunty.

**_Three years ago..._ **

Tina, Jacob and the Maledictus girl were ushered through the narrow entryway of Newt’s London townhouse in the small hours of the morning. Their host disappeared into the first door on the left Tina supposed led to the lounge, though she saw a single bed stuffed into the corner. _Is that where he sleeps?_

“Bunty?” She heard Newt call out. It sounded like the name of one of his creatures. Had they gotten loose while he’d been away in Paris?

Next, she heard a clang followed by shuffling from below which grew louder as the source of the sound approached.

Jacob must’ve seen the look of curiosity on her face as he leaned against the banister of the staircase, the lower most stair occupied by the quiet, stricken girl. “Bunty is his assistant. I met her before we left to find you.”

“Oh.” Bunty was a her. A human her. Confirmed once more by the second, decidedly more feminine voice in the next room.

 _Calm down, Tina_ , she urged herself, becoming increasingly frustrated by her sordid fits of jealousy where Newt was concerned. Truth was, she’d never felt quite so strongly for another person. Enough, at least, for the threat of losing him to another to consume her so fiercely. She often felt it suffocating not only herself but also her sister...

_Queenie..._

She looked to Jacob, who appeared just as depressed as she felt.

“Hello,” greeted a gentle, high voice. “Won’t you all come in? Settle down?” It was Bunty. She had a kind face and an even more welcoming disposition. “Newt’s just gone down to check on the creatures.”

Tina helped the girl, Nagini she’d told Bunty, to the sofa, careful not to startle her as Jacob plumped down in the armchair, his face in his hands. Tina didn’t feel comfortable sitting down and instead hovered by the archway that separated the living room and the smaller dining area.

Bunty returned with a tray of tea things, gesturing them all to help themselves. She stood idly for a moment, unsure what else to do.

“You’re Miss Goldstein, yes?”

Tina nodded, curious. “How do you know? Has Newt spoken of me?” She hoped so.

“Newt doesn’t talk much about anything aside from his creatures,” the blonde woman shrugged. “Well... not to me at least.”

Tina noted the disappointment in her voice. “And why should he? I’m only his assistant at the end of the day.” The laugh that followed did nothing to hide the sadness there either.

“Then how?” If he hadn’t spoken of her, how could this woman know who she was. She didn’t appear the type to follow recent news of international law enforcement.

“He carries your picture.” Bunty doesn’t ponder long on the thought and excused herself. “Lovely to meet you. Good night, all.”

Before Tina could register the implications of what Bunty had revealed, or the memory of herself asking a similarly worded question in New York nine months earlier, Newt returned from out of the door behind her.

As he made his apologies for disappearing, he absentmindedly placed a hand on the small of Tina’s back as he passed her, lingering there long enough for it to sear through her thick, leather coat. There had been plenty of room for him to pass without touching her, which made Tina’s heart soar at the unnecessary contact he’d chosen to make. 

He wanted to touch her.

She now understood why Bunty had been so doleful upon meeting her.

**_Present day_ **

Now, Tina wondersas they close in on Hogsmeade station, if Bunty rejoiced when she removed herself from Newt’s life abruptly and altogether earlier in the year.

She would not suspect the gentility of the woman to afford her the capacity to be opportunistic. She had always been kind and accommodating to Tina in the few years she’d known her, even as she had to watch her employer enter into a deeply committed, romantic relationship.

No, Tina decides. Bunty wouldn’t do that.

But what about Newt? Did his drunken carelessness extend to seeking out comfort in the arms of another?

She hates herself for considering it. And she finds herself truly thankful for the distraction Theseus was no doubt about to give as he started organising his paperwork on his lap. “Almost there,” he announces.

“Anything we should expect before meeting Dumbledore?” Tina asks, fixing the already neat cuffs on her white blouse.

Theseus places a finger on his chin, making a drama out of telling her he wouldn’t like to deny Dumbledore the pleasure of divulging any information that both she and Newt ought to anticipate with much trepidation.

“Speak plainly, Thes,” groans Newt. “Any surprises we should prepare for?”

“Well-“

“Hogsmeade!” The conductor’s voice boomed throughout the length of the train via the Sonorus charm.

“Git,” Newt mumbles towards his brother who was grinning across at him.

Theseus turns to Tina who has just gotten to her feet behind Newt, and winks. He was really having too much fun.

The trio makes their way from the platform to an awaiting carriage pulled by two Thestrals they could all, unfortunately, see.

Theseus enters first, followed by Tina at Newt’s wordless insistence and then the awkward man himself. He chooses to sit on the same side as Tina once again. _Likely so he doesn’t accidentally look at me,_ Tina surmises bitterly. It was just as well because she preferred to stare out the window anyway.

Tina takes the opportunity to marvel at the school’s extensive grounds, having only been there twice before. The first shortly after the incident in Paris, during which the stay was too short for any such sightseeing. The second a year and half later when Newt had received an invite to serve as the substitute Care of Magical Creatures teacher for a term.

They’d been officially courting during that time and he asked her to join him. Dumbledore did, after all, offer them quarters in the castle that accommodated for two. “You think he’s up to something?” She had asked him as they unpacked the afternoon of their arrival.

“Dumbledore is always up to something.” Newt affirmed lightly.

The prospect then hadn’t scared Tina quite as much as it did now as their carriage halts at the entrance to his school. She swallows the lump of dread in her throat and inhales sharply.

Theseus was already out of the carriage and making his way up the stone steps when Newt steps out and offers his hand to her as she follows.

Part of her wants to ignore the gesture altogether and brush past him with an air of indifference she doesn’t feel. But another, stronger part yearns to feel his touch again, if only for the fleetest of moments.

With that decided, she takes his hand and gracefully steps down and out of the carriage, withdrawing her hand only once she felt him start to pull away to adjust Pickett who seemed to be glaring at her for having the audacity to touch his tree. 

They follow Theseus up toward the large, imposing double doors which open on their own to reveal Professor Dumbledore, hands in his pockets, arms relaxed by his sides. The image of calm. It was comforting, Tina mused. “Welcome! Theseus, Newt,” nodding to each of them. “Miss Goldstein.” He offers her a smile and before she knows it, they’re in his office above the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom.

Tina was admiring the layout of the classroom down the slightly wound staircase beyond the door. It was spacious with high-ceilings and room for the occasional teaching aid. She could see herself teaching in it.

Meanwhile, Newt was admiring the view of the quidditch pitch from the small, vertical window. Nostalgia and something akin to lost chances ghosted his features.

Theseus and Dumbledore were conversing animatedly, catching up before the inevitability set in.

“So,” the eldest of the man begins. “The younger Miss Goldstein has finally seen the error of Gellert’s ways?”

Tina and Newt turn their attention toward the conversation. Theseus nods, “so it would seem. She proposed an opportunity for one of our own to enter Grindelwald’s ranks under her own assurance of character.”

“What makes you think Grindelwald will trust Queenie so readily?”

Dumbledore looks between Tina and Newt for a moment, considering his words and assessing their moods. What comfort Tina had felt upon his welcome was lost in this gesture. “She proved her loyalty when she led him into the Ministry and...” he looks down to his hands. “And what followed from there.”

Tina squeezes her eyes shut, trying to vanquish the memory threatening to overtake her. The sharp intake of breath from Newt tells her he too was struggling. The sound of splintering wood compels her to open her eyes. He had snapped a quill in two, frightening Pickett in the process. 

“I know it’s difficult. Newt but it’s important if you’re going to understand.” Theseus reasons tactfully.

It earns a groan they seldom hear from ordinarily mild-tempered Newt. “It’s unnecessary to bring it all back again!” He argues, more for her sake than his own, Tina soon realises. He was afraid she would remember more than she already did. She could understand that, willing to obliviate the memory from his mind altogether should he ask it of her.

He was about to contest the alleged necessity of it when Tina starts, “Newt.” His eyes are locked with hers immediately. It was the first she’d spoken to him all day and the eager glint on his face was enough to make Tina feel guilty for not doing so earlier. “It’s okay,” she tells him with a weak smile, her voice soft and eyes reassuring. It subdues him instantly and he retreats ever so slightly as Dumbledore, Tina notes, smiles slightly to himself.

“If Queenie would stand by and let him hurt her own sister... well, her loyalties are irrefutable.” This conversation was severely testing Tina’s heart. She had been consumed by the aftershocks of betrayal and loss since the moment Queenie opened the door for Grindelwald. Her little sister who sowed ribbons into her clothes and adorned desserts with edible roses; so full of life and the fervour to love, twisted and manipulated by that same desire to love freely. But now, ready to return home to her.

Tina knows where the conversation is heading, and her mind is made up before it’s over. _For Queenie._ She’d forgive her anything _._

Theseus nods in agreement. “That is one of two reasons our plan should work nicely.”

Dumbledore shifts slightly so that he is facing Tina. “If her sister were to join his cause, he would not doubt Queenie if she were to assure him of your loyalty. She would have no reason to lie and given the lengths she has already gone to for him, he knows she would not.” He watches her eyes, understanding passing between them. 

“Wait…what?” Newt exclaims once more, unable to remain silent. “Dumbledore, what are you saying?”

“That’s what Graves was talking about in his owl?” Tina asks Theseus who turns in his chair to look at her. “The loyalty of one will ensure the lives of many.”

The eldest Scamander brother nods in confirmation as the other moves to catch his gaze. “Theseus, you’re talking about sending Tina into the lion’s den! An Auror tortured by Grindelwald himself, whom he has every reason to believe should have an ulterior motive.” He’s certainly correct about that, Tina thinks. Queenie and Credence are her priorities, but razing Grindelwald’s faction to the ground was indeed high on her agenda. “Her cover will be blown before its even begun.”

The overprotectiveness Newt was displaying might’ve annoyed Tina on any other day. As things stood, it served as a reminder that he still cared deeply for her, enough to break out of the sanctuary of his personal bubble and catechise the dominance of those more sociable and assertive than himself 

“That’s where you come in Newt.”

“What?” Newt and Tina say together, having quite forgotten that Dumbledore explicitly asked for them both.

“Tina won’t be going in alone,” clarifies Theseus, grinning. Too much fun indeed.

Dumbledore pushes himself away from his desk and stands firmly in place. “You see, there is one thing Gellert understands better than anything else. He questions it seldom, if ever.”

A beat.

What?

“Love.”

The weight of the word is heavy, an all too painful and complicated history attached to it. Someone who hadn’t been trained to read the small gestures people made and find hidden intricacies in them would not have seen what the Auror in Tina had in the subtle aged lines of Dumbledore’s face. Queenie was right when she said people are easiest to read when they’re hurting. 

The implications of what he said did not fuel the awkward air between Newt and Tina. They had never denied their love for one another.

“He’s familiar with your feelings for each other – having watched it blossom in New York, while he disguised himself as your superior, Tina. Again, in Paris and then years later… at the ministry that night.” Although Dumbledore hadn’t been witness to the event himself, he knows Newt and knows too that he would’ve done anything to spare his love that night. “He knows Tina would not let you follow her unless she intended on staying. And he knows too that you Newt, will not defy him because it would result in her death.” Newt’s eyes shut tightly at the thought. 

“So what? Queenie, loyal to him above all else, assures him I’m ready to join of my own accord? For what reason?”

“You’ll figure it out on the way. There is still time.” It was Theseus’s turn to speak who had begun opening his briefcase again.

“And Newt just happens to join simply because I did?” Tina scoffs. “Love is not enough to follow someone into a madman’s extremist regime. Jacob is living proof of that.” Newt is quiet beside her. Although he could not rebut her regarding Jacob’s choice, Tina knows he’d likely make a different one. She’s glad he doesn’t interject to announce as much.

“No. It’s not believable. Newt can’t come with me.” she said to herself, as if by saying so might make it true. In spite of the current grievances between them, she doesn’t want to lose him. She couldn’t bare it.

“Well…” levels Dumbledore, hands back in his pockets. “That leads us to the final part of our plan.”

Oh no… 

“You’ll have to get married.” Theseus declares. And if that wasn’t enough, he adds, “with the Unbreakable Vow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please stay tuned for explanations in the next chapter - all will make sense soon! As always, please kudos and comment!


	5. Chapter 5

The silence and the stillness swells around Tina, broken only by the occasional snore or rustle from the portrait of the old witch hanging on the wall above the vanity. She was back in the room above the Leaky Cauldron’s bar she’d rented only days prior. If her surroundings could have reflected the feelings within her, the picture would’ve cried it out in frustration. The floorboards would’ve moaned with the weight of tension upon them. She walked around the quiet of the room, inhaling, willing herself not to think. But she had to... there was no escape from it.

After their meeting with Dumbledore, she had arrived back in London in the late evening with the brothers in tow. Although Newt was just as stunned into silence as she had been, Theseus was beaming from ear to ear, far too amused for his own good. “Back off home and pack, you two,” he’d told them in their approach to London, suppressing a chuckle fit to burst. “I’ll be round at Newt’s in the morning to get you going.”

Tina had wanted to hex him so that he too would stop talking. Fortunately, they’d used a Portkey acquired by Dumbledore to return home. As such, they had to endure Theseus’s prattling very little and he had been spared a silencing spell to the face.

Tina’s head was splitting from what he and Dumbledore had told them. “The Unbreakable Vow, although unnecessary with the trust you have in each other, will be pivotal to convince Grindelwald that neither of you will falter to remain true to the other as you pledge allegiance to him.”

He understands love, but trust was an entirely different matter altogether.

“Won’t Queenie’s assurance be enough for Newt too?” Tina had inquired, stealing a glance at Newt whose eyes had gone wild and distant. He seemed just as overwhelmed as she.

“Queenie might be incredibly skilled in natural legilimency, but Grindelwald will sooner trust her to know you, her sister, better than any other.” It made sense. “He will always be wary of Newt.” Particularly considering he had already Infiltrated the dark wizard’s ranks under the guise of another. How were they to account for that obstacle, Tina worried. _They’ve probably thought of that too_ , she admitted, looking from Dumbledore to Theseus who seemed not the slightest bit concerned that their plan might backfire.

Before she could challenge them on the matter, “Is it really the only way?” she heard Newt ask his older brother in a small voice, almost inaudible to herself and the professor. With a nod from Theseus, Newt retreated from them and returned back to the view of quidditch pitch, solemn and conflicted.

Now back in London, repacking the few small items she’d already unpacked upon first arriving in the country, Tina knows Newt understands the importance of their task, but is just as scared as she is to undertake it.

An unbreakable marriage to communicate to Grindelwald their incontestable commitment to both each other and his cause was all well and good but...

“It shouldn’t be happening like this,” Tina sighs heavily, clicking the latches on her case shut. Marrying Newt out of necessity for the greater good rather than mutual desire and love was not what she had imagined for herself.

There seemed to be very little air in Tina’s lungs, her breathing struggled and shallow. She was near to crying. Newt deserves better than this. Unlike her chosen profession, Newt had neither signed up for faking his own death, disguising himself as a devoted extremist nor being forced into a marriage Tina doubts he is ready for, only to once again put his life in danger within Grindelwald’s reach. 

Suddenly, the sound of glass cracking followed by a loud smash came from behind her. She flinches and turns to inspect the damage.

She was so angry and fearful that the rage seeped out of her and into the air of the room, breaking the vanity’s mirror glass under the pressure of her raw, untamed emotions.

Tina approaches the now disordered side of the room and waves her hand over the shards of glass at her feet, wordlessly willing them to rejoin the others within the frame of the mirror. She ignores the scandalised face and disapproving mutterings of the witch in the above portrait, staring at herself as more of her face gradually came into focus as the mirror became whole again. 

She looks exhausted and worn out, but there was no time to rest. Theseus was expecting her back at Newt’s townhouse come dawn. Sleep and her misery at their circumstances would have to wait.

Sniffing away the tears, clearing her throat, she moves to collect her case atop the bedclothes. She pats her side to ensure her wand was still tucked away within her coat and disapparates.

Newt’s lounge was in disarray when Tina arrived. The lamp on the cabinet was hanging off the side, dangling by the wire, lighting only a portion of the room at a time as it swung haphazardly. His favourite armchair had been upended and the rug in front of the hearth was on fire. Tina points her wand at it and extinguishes the flames before they could spread.

The torn curtain was hanging off its rail behind her, from which she heard a soft scuttling sound, followed shortly by another beneath the table in the dining area. There were several sickles scattered pell-mell across the floor, leaving a small trail from Newt's coat in the hallway.

Tina smiles to herself, shaking her head. _Naturally_ , she muses.

Then, a blur of blueish grey began to whiz past her.

“Immobulus,” she utters, freezing the blur in mid-air, revealing to her what she had suspected.

Pistachio, the now fully grown Niffler hung immobile in the air, staring at her innocently, clutching a beaded drawback in his greedy paws. “Escaped Mummy, I see.” Tina reaches out to take the creature, holding him to her chest as she moves to investigate which of his siblings had accompanied him.

She squats by the table and slowly lifts the laced-cloth to reveal the rich ginger fur that belonged to Pumpkin. The second Niffler tries to flee with a pouch full of sickles but Tina’s Auror reflexes were faster. “Accio Niffler,” and he’s joining his brother, thwarted and held hostage by the human. 

Hearing noises and muffled cursing beneath her, Tina approaches the basement door. “Newt?” She calls down the stairs into the vast, enchanted chasm below.

She calls for him once, twice more before a lack of response urges her to go down and find him.

To their credit, neither Pumpkin nor Pistachio struggle against her, perhaps as eager to find their mum as she was.

She doesn’t have to look particularly long or hard as half of his body was protruding from the case left ajar on the floor by the Grindylow’s aquatic enclosure. Some of which had congregated in stationary bubbles to admire the spectacle.

Newt is facing in the opposite direction from Tina and hasn’t noticed her presence given his comforting mutterings to whatever had attached itself to his lower half inside the case. “It’s only for a short while. I’ll be back to play with you in a few hours,” he assures said creature, trying, though in vain, to pull himself free from its grasp with his hands braced on the floor.

“Need some help?” Tina tries to suppress a giggle when he cranes his head back in her direction.

“Oh!” His cheeks fill with a scarlet flush. “Tina! I was not expecting you quite so soon.” He tries harder to pull free, embarrassed at how she’d found him.

“I didn’t have much to pack. Thought I’d come and help you,” she shrugs, crossing the basement to place the Nifflers back into their nest. “These two have made a bit of a mess upstairs while you were...” she eyes him when she turns around, “distracted.”

The blush in his freckled cheeks somehow deepens and he looks away. “If you just give me one moment, I’ll be right with you.”

Tina holds her arms and humours him, watching another failed attempt to escape the bottomless hole in the floor. “Oh Newt,” she rolls her eyes. “Don’t be so proud.”

She moves towards him, kneels onto the floor and holds out her arms for him to take a hold of, which he does with a defeated sigh and a small measure of wariness.

They lock eyes and will themselves to ignore the instinctive pull there, focussing on the task at present. “On three,” Tina starts. “One... two...”

She yanks on his torso as he pushes his weight upward from his ankles and the next thing they’re aware of is that Tina’s back has met the straw-covered floor and Newt’s front was flat against hers, pinning her down. It transports Tina back to the masquerade gala when he’d sought her out in the dark and held her against the nearest wall. Kissing, touching, loving away the lost time of months spent apart.

Their breathing is ragged and short as the tips of their noses whisper against the other, eyes unable to avert their gazes. Tina could see that Newt too was recalling the last time they were intimate, the heat and longing darkening the golden flecks of his iris’.

“That’s my job.” Tina offers, in an audible whisper. But she certainly wasn’t too proud to admit that their new position was a welcome one; missed and yearned after.

The distant roar from inside the case startles them out of whatever might’ve happened next and Newt scuttles off of her, making his apologies as he helps her up.

“The Zouwu,” he explains. “She’s developing some attachment issues.” He latches the case shut as she’d done to her own:

“You oughta be careful, Newt. You may have another Pickett on your hands,” Tina smiles as she fixes her now shoulder-length hair, offering to relieve the tension thick in the air.

Newt smiles back ever so slightly, retreating behind his fringe once more. He notes her standing idle and remembers she had come to help him pack. “I’ve still got to check the Augury’s tail feather and feed the Kelpie. Could you bottle some dittany and Aconite for me, please? You’ll find them in-“

“The drawers beneath the stairs,” she interrupts. “I remember.” And they share a heavy look before setting to work.

Tina finds the herbs easily enough, but the empty bottles and their stoppers were another matter. She continued to rifle through each drawer until she comes to sudden and complete stop. The drawer she finds the corks In was also home to another, rather out-of-place object.

A bejewelled baby rattle. 

She was afraid to touch it for fear of recalling another memory she’d rather not dwell upon. But something in her reaches for it anyway and, surprisingly, is not flooded by the inevitable pain she was expecting. Instead, another moment in time rushes forward from her subconscious.

**_Eight months ago..._ **

Tina had been tossing and turning. as much as her slightly protruding belly would allow, since she’d turned in for the night. The nausea seemed rooted to her core and she could feel herself getting lightheaded in bed.

The visiting healer told her she had reached the second third of her pregnancy and assured her the sickness of the first would dissipate.

Much to her chagrin, it had yet to do so. Rather it seemed to have only worsened. Leaving her too exhausted to move half of the time and too uncomfortable to sleep the rest.

She groaned and pushed herself up from the mattress. The effort made her head spin despite how slowly she’d risen. She tried to manoeuvre herself off the rickety bed without waking Newt in the next room. She didn’t want to bother him with a problem he’d made clear was hers and hers alone.

But just as she swung her feet down onto the floor and stood up, her vision became a blurred tapestry of vague shadows in the dark of early morning. She felt turbulent waves in her body that caused her to sway slightly. She reached out to steady herself but when her hand found nothing, her stomach lurched and her body hit the floor.

All went dark and quiet.

It was not the rolling of rusty wheels against unwaxed floors that woke her. It wasn’t the swing of light piercing the veil of her eyelids, nor was it the distant sounds of wailing babies rousing her.

No. It was the frightened, distressed keening of the deep, familiar voice she knew so well.

“Newt?" 

She felt a hand on her hairline and another on her belly as he spoke again. “Tina, love. It’s all right. You’ll be fine, I’ll be right here with you,” He promised her, pressing his lips to her forehead.

Tina could sense she was slipping again but heard him say “please save them,” before drifting off into blackness.

She felt the same hand on her belly when she woke again hours later, the last remnants of a crippling fever rendering her senses fuzzy and indistinct.

Her hand moved on the rough hospital bedclothes and collided with a tangled mop of hair. She couldn’t open her eyes to see the owner, the lights overheard were much too bright.

“Tina,” He exhaled. It sounded as though a great weight had been pressing on him and he had been finally reprieved. He tells her of healers and potions and counteracting something but her still clouded brain couldn’t register enough to make sense of it.

“Our baby is safe, thank Merlin!” He exclaimed softly, the hand on her middle caressing the small bump. It endeared her to him in her half-comatose state.

“Rest now. I’ll be here when you wake again.” The reassurance of Newt’s voice and touch was enough to lull Tina into the most peaceful slumber she’d had in weeks.

**_Present day..._ **

Before, she hadn’t even remembered Newt ever being there, much less praying to the spirits that she as well as the baby braved the storm and survived the fever.

He did care. He did want the baby. Which meant he had been in as much pain as she was since having bled it out on her office floor.

Her eyes must be glistening and her face wet from the tears now because Newt is by her side in an instant. “Tina, whatever’s the matter? Are you all right?” He implores, his eyes scanning her for any injuries.

“Newt,” it’s weak and riddled with tears. “I’m so sorry,” but he hears it anyway.

His expression is of visible confusion. “Wh-” but he is interrupted by a loud crack upstairs that signalled his brother’s arrival. Sure enough, they hear Theseus calling down into the basement. “Newt? Has Tina arrived yet?”

Newt looks back at Tina who had turned away, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “We’ll be up in a moment!” He replies, placing a tentative but firm hand on Tina’s back. “Talk to me, Tina.”

She does not turn to face him when she answers, “I’m okay, it's nothing.” Newt can tell it’s a lie, but he knows Tina and knows too when to stop insisting. She knows he only wishes she could feel able to open up to him, express what had caused that frightful, sheepish flare in the doe-like hue of her eyes. She knows because she wishes he could too. His heart was heavy with whatever was weighing upon hers in that moment, but he steps back, giving her some space.

Tina straightens her back, sniffs and blinks away the pain. “Shall we?. 

Newt nods after a long moment and follows her upstairs.

They find Theseus waving his wand in various directions, repairing the damage made by the over-zealous Nifflers. “You two could’ve at least waited until your wedding night,” he chuckles with fake chastising.

Tina looks away so that he might not notice the bloodshot quality of her eyes but his frown tells her he had. Like his brother, however, he doesn’t press and instead stops joking around. Now was not the time.

“Mr. Graves and President Picquery are expecting you both in New York by noon. The ceremony will take place there.” He sits down on the sofa, a thick pile of documents on his lap. “I won’t be joining you – we want it to appear like an elopement to the papers who will be informed by myself as you set off on your honeymoon tomorrow.” He tells them the destination is en route to Grindelwald’s last known sighting, confirmed, in secret, a week earlier by Queenie.

Tina settles into the now erect armchair across from her fellow Auror. “I meant to ask, before we left Hogwarts… won’t Newt’s past attempts to spy on Grindelwald be detrimental to our new goal?” She surveys Theseus’s face closely for any signs of alarm. 

There was none, clarifying her early suspicions that he had thought of that too. She admired his scrupulousness. 

“Newt and I discussed this after you left earlier. He’ll explain it to you on the way.” He seems to be in a hurry, Tina notes, miffed he couldn’t just tell her then and now.

“Where are we going?” asks Newt, hovering cautiously behind Tina. She wonders whether he intended to change the subject.

Theseus looks down at the papers within his hand and pulls out two tickets and reads the destination.

“Rio.”

Tina’s eyebrows lift in interest. Perhaps she ought to have packed differently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re back to Newt’s POV next chapter. As always, please kudos and comment.


	6. Chapter 6

Once upon a less complicated time, making the journey from London to New York had been worth the floo induced nausea. In point of fact, Newt had made the crossing with Tina thrice in a previous year to visit their muggle friend Jacob, kept too busy by his ever-expanding bakery to voyage across the Atlantic. 

Thoughts of Jacob made him miss the infectiously cheerful man. Perhaps they’d have time to see him before they went South. He and Tina both were in dire need of a good laugh.

As they exit the fire within the grates of MACUSA’s floo office, Newt thinks his complexion bears a green to rival the flames of the floo itself. He looks over at Tina with an attempt at a brave smile. She doesn’t look any better than he feels.

He knows better than to ask if she is all right as she hadn’t said two words to him since Theseus escorted them to the Ministry. He settles for offering to take her case as she wipes her face of soot, for fear of receiving a sign of indignation if he spoke. He bashfully wishes she’d offer to clean his face as well but thinks better of asking that too.

Once her pearly skin shone clearly again, she wordlessly takes both cases from Newt, allowing him the opportunity to make himself presentable.

 _Was it to be done immediately?_ He dread _s,_ the knot that had formed in his stomach from teleporting such a vast distance had coiled tighter still with the ebbing of an anxiety that often crippled him to his knees.

He watches Tina intently, who seemed to be waiting for something to emerge from the door behind him.

Instead, a someone in the form of Percival Graves approaches them. Newt has never met the real man before, only the facade Grindelwald had assumed in the close of ‘26, though he could hardly claim there was much of a difference in the way he presents himself. It wasn’t difficult to understand just how the employees in the Major Investigations Department hadn’t realised their leader was not whom he claimed to be.

As the real man approaches, there was an immediate impression of shrewdness and fortitude in his manner, and Newt thinks he understands the reverence Tina often showed toward whenever she and Theseus discussed him.

“Mr. Scamander,” Graves nods courteously towards him and offers his hand.

Newt grasps it briefly and shakes, his other hand hurrying to clean the last of the smoky remnants from his skin. He must look like a fool to this man, who was dressed in an impeccably tailored black and white suit, clean cut and almost too formal for work. It was considerably more fitting for a wedding than his own ochre waistcoat and worn wool trench, completely mismatched by his old Hufflepuff scarf.

Graves turns, his expression softening ever so slightly that it was barely perceptible. “Tina. Welcome home.” Newt wonders if Tina had noticed.

 _She’s only been gone for a few days, for goodness sake!_ Newt groans inwardly, hoping neither Auror had seen the roll of his eyes.

“Thank you, sir,” she offers him a genuine smile and Newt’s heart plummets to his stomach.

Part of him hates the comfortable familiarity between them and the other part is chastising him for begrudging Tina of an honest-to-goodness relationship with anyone that was not himself. As it was, Tina had known Percival Graves far longer than she’d known him. She idolised him, took orders - mostly - willingly from him and, loathe Newt was to admit it, once developed a crush on the elder man.

He remembers the first day he met Tina, when she dragged him to the Woolworth building and to the secret MID within. It was as the elevator was closing the then disguised Grindelwald caught up with her and reassured her. He also remembers how he’d leaned in close, touched her upper lip to slowly wipe off the mustard there and winked as he walked away. It was less than an hour prior she’d flinched away from Newt who had tried to do the same thing.

Newt knows that despite it being Grindelwald who had done these things, Tina’s reaction, or rather lack thereof, had told him it was not uncharacteristic of the real Graves to invade her personal space so boldly. That Tina did not mind when he did so.

He can’t help but wonder whether they’d once been more than mentor and protege.

Before he can become drowned by images he’d rather never see, he hears Tina’s voice. “Newt! Come on!” 

He looks up to see her following Graves out of the room and he rushes to catch up, left leg leading the other as always. He takes to Tina’s left side as he steps into the elevator after them. 

“Cold feet, Scamander?” Graves jokes, his voice delicately inflected to suggest mockery, into the suffocating air of the lift as it roared upwards.

Newt could tell what Graves was doing and decides he would not be the bumbling, sweaty-palmed idiot he’d presented himself to be moments ago and accepts the unspoken challenge dangling before him. “With Tina? Not a chance.” He counters confidently. 

He feels Tina flinch beside him, her breath caught in her throat as if he’d just declared his undying love for her right then and there.

Newt supposes, in a way, he had.

Whatever measure of composure she’d lost in that brief moment had returned tenfold as she steps forward when the elevator door slides open. “If you two cavemen are quite finished playing tug of war, we’ve a President to meet.” and she strides out of their sight, the clicking of her shoes against concrete floors following her.

President Picquery is waiting for them at the end of the labyrinth of corridors as they approach, a sign which communicated to Newt the urgency of the matter.

What warm welcome Graves had provided was lost on her. “You’re late, Miss Goldstein,” the older woman said, sounding jaded but not surprised.

Tina lowers her head, “yes, Madam President. I apologise.” It was barely five minutes past noon, Newt notes incredulously but remains silent for fear of causing Tina more trouble than he was worth.

He notices that the President was wearing heels which brought her to slightly below eye level with Tina who had, blessedly to Picquery, forgone such a fashion staple. She’d have towered over her superior and that simply wasn’t the done thing if one was to appear intimidating.

“My fault, Sera.” Graves interluding once more. Newt had quite forgotten he was there.

“No matter,” Picquery waves him off, pointless to apportion blame and moves aside. “Shall we, then?”

Newt looks at Tina who had already turned to him. She nods after a moment and mimics the action. “Lead the way, Madam President.”

They’re ushered into a dimly lit room in which Newt’s vision had trouble adjusting enough to see the others.

“Percy? The honours?” Picquery’s voice echoes, reaching Newt’s ears before his eyes could find her.

His gaze is drawn to a hand waving slowly in an arching motion out of the corner of his eye and suddenly, several torches were lit ablaze in their brackets on the walls at either side of the immense room. It was now bathed in a warm glow, and the reflective tiles on the floor created an illusion of dark water beneath their feet, multiplying the number of torches.

Newt wonders whether Ilvermorny had taught its students wandless magic or if it was simply a defining attribute of Aurors employed at MACUSA. He had seen the level of skill Tina possessed in the smallest of hand movements and had just now seen Graves demonstrate a similar aptitude for using magic without the use of either his wand or an incantation. 

He would have to ask Tina later. Three years spent in each other’s company and she was still managing to surprise him.

The deep warmth of the room contrasted sharply with the clinical brightness of the execution chamber he remembers all too well. Newt and Tina had the misfortune to have been in it long enough for the icy chill to seep into their bones, leaving in its wake a foul aftertaste of death. Following on from that experience, they’d both been plagued by nightmares.

Nightmares that varied each night, a small but significant detail altered to wake them in a fit of cold sweats. Sometimes the Swooping Evil would move an inch too far. Some nights Tina would be too entranced by the memories to hear him calling to her. And other nights Pickett hadn’t been in his breast pocket and he’d been forced to watch as the death potion swallowed her.

For Tina, Newt was the one in the chair and it was she who was left to watch him die.

When Newt had held her in his arms in an effort to calm her, telling her “better me than you,” the look of anger she’d sent his way was something he was unlikely to forget in a hurry.

That particular night ended in Tina leaving for work early and giving him the cold shoulder in the day that followed.

That reaction had not been as surprising.

“I trust your brother told you what’s to happen after the ceremony?” Either Graves or Picquery asks him, Newt doesn’t know as he stares at Tina who was admiring the expanse of the room.

Newt nods, “we’ll stay in the city tonight and head for Brazil tomorrow afternoon.”

“Graves, ask one of the secretarial staff to arrange accommodation for Miss Goldstein and Mr Scamander for this evening.”

“That won’t be necessary, Madam President,” Tina interjects. “Newt and I will stay at my apartment. If that’s all right?”

“Perfectly.” The president nods. “Let’s get to it then.” And she ushers both Newt and Tina to join her at the altar now rising from the floor, a relic of the disused room. It was small but ornate, donned with ancient runes that glowed golden against the black stone.

“Face each other and join hands,” and Newt is surprised to see that Tina reaches out to take his hand before he had even turned. He lifts his other to take hers, caressing her knuckles gently so as to help her relax. He knows her insides are screaming with the anxiety he himself was so accustomed to.

He wishes that he, like her sister, was adept at legilimency so that he could breach the barriers of Tina’s mind and comfort her with a string of hushed endearments and sweet sentiments.

_It will be all right._

_It’s just us. You and me. Together._

_I’ll catch you._

_No one can touch us._

_I’ve got you_ , _Tina_.

But Newt knows they were just that: sentiments. And they weighed far less than taking her into his arms and holding her still while the harrowing world raged around them.

“We are gathered here today to witness the union of two faithful souls...” President Picquery begins, head held high and eyes front, rendering the old book in her hands useless. She seemed to know the marriage rites by heart.

Years later, Newt would be unable to reiterate the rest of the ceremonial speech for his mind had become deaf and blind to all but the woman before him who seemed to be calming somewhat. 

Perhaps she had heard him after all.

It’s then that Newt finally realises they were getting married.

Him. Married. To Tina.

Four years ago, he would not have thought it possible. Trudging through the roughest terrain on the planet, withstanding the most treacherous of the elements to ultimately brave the wildest, most magical creatures in existence and he could not have foreseen this turn of events. 

And, Newt thinks, _this isn’t how it should be._

Tina deserves a wedding befit for the woman she is. A wedding with a dazzling dress lovingly hand-crafted by her sister who knew her tastes better than anyone. A wedding in which their nearest and dearest were in attendance and they didn’t have to worry whether they’d be married for a year or a hundred.

Something altogether better than this rushed secret ceremony in a vacant shadowed room in the North American Ministry.

He looks down at his left hand, the other dropped by Tina who was now preparing to slide a golden band onto his ring finger. He looks up at her face, watching intently.

Despite the circumstances, she was becoming his wife, and there is certainly a great deal more magic in the world than any witch or wizard could have ever anticipated.

It was his turn to do the same and as Graves hands him an identical, though daintier, band to him, he looks to Tina with a question.

She nods and he slides the ring on her slender finger, marvelling at how naturally it looked.

The sound of a book closing is all he hears before he’s given the go-ahead to kiss her.

It’s a chaste but slow kiss, and one Newt cherishes all the same. His hands hold her small waist whilst hers settle on his lapel and if they were alone, he knows he’d close the distance between their bodies and deepen the kiss until she gasped for air. 

When they break apart, they stare at one another’s left hand while the President and Graves confer off to the side. 

“Are you all right?”

There is some hesitation, but it’s brief. “Yeah. You?”

“Always with you.” 

They share a watery smile. 

“To the Vow then,” announces Picquery as she approaches them once more. “Graves has consented to be your Bonder.” She moves aside to allow the man himself to step up to the newlyweds.

“Kneel,” he instructs, pulling out his wand from the innermost pocket of his suit jacket. 

Newt and Tina let go of one another as they sink to the floor. They reconnect instantly by reaching out to grasp each other’s right wrist, long fingers circling around the other’s forearm. Newt gulps and Tina inhales deep. 

Graves continues to stand over them and points the tip of his wand on their linked hands.

“Will you, Newton, uphold your marriage vow to pledge your living and your dying to your wife?”

“I will,” Newt says. 

A thin stream of light issues from the steely black wand and winds its way around their conjoined wrists.

“Will you, Porpentina, remain true to your promise that your back shall be a shield to your husbands and his to yours, no matter what you shall face?”

“I will,” breathes Tina.

Another loose tongue of flame bursts from the wand, taking the opposite route of the first and interlinks with it at their pulse points, creating a seamless infinity strand around their hands.

“And should either of you follow a darker path, irrespective of the reason, will you promise to remain steadfast and unwavering in your commitment to one another?”

Although Newt and Tina’s eyes had been locked the entire time, it was as if only now they were truly seeing one another. Baring themselves to the other’s scrutiny. The conviction and determination mirrors itself in the shared gaze as they both affirm, “I will.”

The blaze of a final and third beam shoots from the wand and twists with the length of the others, locking the infinity in place. The red glow it emits before finally extinguishing into their skin is brilliant but ominous.

...

Hours later, Newt finds himself settling into the Goldstein apartment whilst he waited for Tina to return from wherever she’d gone off to. “I’ll meet you at my place in an hour or so,” she’d told him before sauntering off to an empty alleyway to apparate. Unwilling to sit idle while he waited, Newt decided he would walk the distance from MACUSA. Unfortunately, she lived relatively close and it didn’t take him more than half an hour. 

That was three hours ago, and he was starting to worry.

He busied himself with the creatures he’d chosen to bring with him, but there were so few that they too, didn’t fill up much time. Even the Zouwu had gotten bored of playing after a short time, and Dougal the Demiguise was far too sleepy to interact. As such, Pickett became his only source for company, but even the clingy though irritable Bowtruckle had chosen not to acknowledge his presence for the time being. Likely sulking due to his tree having the audacity to get married.

Newt feels a sharp stinging sensation in his right wrist. The folded sleeves of shirt reveal freckled skin marred with a white meandering scar, slightly reddened with irritation. He rubs at it, wondering if Tina’s identical mark was also bothering her.

 _Where is she?!_ He huffs, his hand falling to the material of the loveseat upon which he sat.

**_Approximately one and a half years ago…_ **

“Where’s the harm in it?” Newt asked one evening of many they’d spent curled up together on the same couch in her Manhattan flat. Their bodies were exhausted from earlier excursions. Tina was flat on her back and he, his own back flush against the cushions beamed languidly down at her, his mouth teasing the skin of her long neck in the way he knew she liked. “Just two young people enjoying each other on a fine winter’s night.”

“Enjoying each other a little too much,” she warned half-heartedly, turning into him, folding her arms between their naked chests while Newt looped his arms around her.

He pushed his hips into hers, urging a low, guttural grunt from her throat. “We’ve tried the whole abstaining malarkey for society’s sake, but us Scamanders and Goldsteins have very little self-restraint.” His nose nudges against hers, lips ghosting one another, though no kiss would be granted until she stopped worrying.

Tina sighed, conceding. “It is difficult. Trying to keep my hands off you when you come out of that Kelpie enclosure all wet and dripping… watching you do what you do best.” And, to be truthful, seeing him go above and beyond his physical limitations in the case always stirred something deep and primal within her.

Newt raised an eyebrow, feeling challenged. “Oh, my darling. That is not at all what I do best.”

Her lips inch closer to his, using her teeth to bite down on his lower lip. “Remind me.”

He smirked against her mouth and lifted himself up off the couch and above her, kissing her softly before he trailed down her taut body, seeking her core, leering up at her as he went.

She is reminded of that which she’d never forgotten, making her scream until the perpetually cautious Demiguise made concerned whimpers from inside the case.

**_Present day…_ **

There’s a loud pop! and Newt is suddenly no longer alone with his wandering thoughts. 

“Tina!” He exclaims breathlessly, sitting up straight and grabbing a throw pillow to hide the shame in his trousers. “Where have you been!?”

She shrugs her coat off and hangs it on the stand. “It’s a surprise,” she winks, turning her back to him as she enters the bedroom, closing the double doors with a graceful flick of her wrist.

_What in the world…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being from Scotland myself, I decided to incorporate a couple Celtic marriage vows into the Unbreakable portion of Newtina's. I hope you all liked this chapter. Please let me know! What do you think Tina's surprise is?


	7. Chapter 7

_The Daily Prophet  
_ **FAMED MAGIZOOLOGIST WEDS AMERICAN AUROR**

Newt Scamander, world renowned author of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them -_  
now on its third edition - marries North American witch and Auror Porpentina Goldstein  
in secret ceremony. “It’s quite like my brother,” Theseus Scamander, chief Auror and war  
hero comments on the elopement. “He never was one for attention.” A fact most debatable  
considering his younger brother’s wild escapades in New York nearly four years ago,  
during which time he met his now wife.

Sources claim the couple have been estranged for the better part of this year following  
on from Grindelwald’s attack on the ministry. However we can only speculate as to why the  
newlyweds chose to separate only to marry in a hasty fashion upon their reunion. Has the  
Magizoogist seen fit to help his American fancy in a time of trouble? Are we to  
expect reports of a birth in the coming months? Time will tell, as will the young  
Mrs Scamander’s (neé Goldstein) waistline.

_The New York Ghost  
_ **MACUSA’S FINEST ELOPES WITH BRIT**

One of MACUSA’s best and brightest has tied the knot in a small, private ceremony.  
Miss Porpentina Goldstein, Auror and Ambassador to the British Ministry of Magic  
has only yesterday married British author Newt Scamander, with whom she had been  
courting steadily for the past three years.

Reports suggest that the delay in proceedings was chiefly due to the Auror’s sister  
having joined murderer and extremist Gellert Grindelwald in Paris years previous.  
No comment yet on how Miss Goldstein, now Scamander, felt marrying without her  
only living relative in attendance. Though we at The New York Ghost wish the  
newlyweds every happiness in their new life together.  
  


* * *

“Well... at least the local press ain’t expecting a rugrat outta ya anytime soon,” Jacob comments optimistically over the two newspapers in his hands, a photo of herself and Newt during his book tour in the States flashes obnoxiously on the front page. Jacob watches it in a wonder that only a no-maj could know. However, Tina notices, the mention of Queenie casts a dark cloud over his ordinarily jovial demeanour.

Tina shrugs, leaning back against the small counter next to the table, coffee mug in hand. The heat from the ceramic was replacing the stinging sensation around her wrist. “I don’t really take much notice these days.” As long as Grindelwald does, that’s all that matters. Her brother-in-law had ensured they made the front page for that very reason.

Silence swells between them for a moment before Jacob speaks again. “I can’t believe you two are married.” It’s absentminded and Tina knows he isn’t looking for any particular response, for which she’s grateful.

She wishes Newt would wake up soon.

Jacob had been a great friend to her, an invaluable source for comfort over the years regarding both Newt and her sister. But that was just it - every conversation with Jacob, however unrelated, would always lead to a similar end.

Queenie, and how much they missed her.

It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing to share in something so close to their hearts. It was only that Tina was not demonstrative like Jacob. She wasn’t overtly affectionate like Queenie nor was she vocal with regards to her feelings. She never had to be - Queenie always knew how she felt. She was not accustomed to expressing them in an intelligible, sensitive manner. So, in the end, after each discussion with Jacob, she often found herself fabricating an excuse to leave, the awkwardness unbearable. It was the guilt hours later that would see her apologising to the no-maj the next time she visited him, vowing to stay longer.

Queenie had been the only person for so long who was able to make sense of the jumbled clutter that were her older sister’s thoughts. The only one who could translate them into an emotion Tina could understand. The only one.

Until Newt.

Her husband.

The force of that new, categorically veracious reality strikes her hard in the chest, momentarily robbing her of breath.

“You okay, Tina?” Jacob asks through her fit of coughs.

Tina nods, covering her face with her left hand upon which another reminder of yesterday’s events gleamed brightly at her.

She couldn’t deny it looked good on her, better for Newt having put it there, of course. And he’d done so tenderly, rather cautiously, as though he feared she’d pull her hand away and refuse him.

Tina pours out the remainder of the coffee and remembers how she had felt the same way.

When Theseus escorted them from Newt’s place to the ministry the previous morning, Tina’s voice had deserted her. The memory thrust upon her in Newt’s basement had rendered her mute, guilt overwhelming any attempt at speech. 

_How could you have been so cruel?_ She’d chastised herself as the brothers conversed. _He was right - you never gave him a chance._ Instead, she abandoned him, left him to grieve alone, burdened by the possibility that she blamed him; despised him. It was no wonder he had been so wary to slide the ring onto her finger. Why he didn’t dare look at her until she looked away. Why his voice quaked and his hands trembled in her presence.

Sometimes Tina wishes he would reach inside himself and find the raw confidence and assertiveness he’d shown the night she returned to London. When he’d slammed his body into hers and held her up against the wall. Hours ago, during what should’ve been their wedding night, she’d given him ample opportunity to indulge once more. With a flimsy nightdress and the strategic placement of her robe, she’d given him full view of the legs he so often loved to bury himself between.

But then, thinking better of it and reminding herself of not only their quest, but also the reason they had been estranged for seven months in the first place. Perhaps not. Their circumstances were no better than when she’d first discovered she was with child. It’s this reminder that thrusts her back to the self-loathing from moments ago. 

_He should hate me._

_Why doesn’t he hate me?_

Tina knows Jacob is casting furtive looks in her direction, but she doesn’t see him. A chill from the memory of pushing Newt away from her bedside at St. Mungo’s stole over her. _I don’t deserve him._

Before Jacob can say anything, one of the doors separating the bedroom from the rest of the apartment opens.

“Tina, do you know where I put my- Jacob.” It’s a dishevelled, heavy-eyed, half-dressed Newt who stops dead in his tracks upon realising they have company.

Jacob is out of his seat and opening his arms to embrace his friend before any of them could catch their breath. “Newt! Buddy!”

Newt’s arms hang limp at Jacob’s sides for a moment before returning the embrace. The crooked smile he sent Tina’s way over the shorter man’s shoulder urged a smaller one from her.

“Surprise,” she beams back at him with a subtle wink, deciding the two hours she’d spent looking for Jacob yesterday and the extra hour it took her to explain the wedding band on her finger was all worth it to see that bright, genuine smile hidden behind tawny curls.

“It’s been a while,” Jacob laughs, ending the hug with a pat on Newt’s back. “I missed ya, pal!”

“It’s wonderful to see you.” Newt agrees brightly, buttoning the open neck of his shirt, only just catching a glimpse at Tina eyeing his chest. It didn’t make him feel self-conscious as it might’ve done had it been anyone else. With Tina, whom he had been more intimate with than any other person, he felt desirable, confident even. He hopes that she too feels the same when, the night before, for instance, he’d watched as she moisturised her long, slim legs from under her teal dressing gown. The simple fact she thought nothing of doing so in front of him told Newt that, at the very least, she was comfortable in his presence. It was all he could ask for. 

It is progress.

“I wasn’t sure whether we’d have time before Tina and I left the city this afternoon.” Leave it to Tina to make time. He was so grateful to her.

“Where you guys headed, anyway?”

“Bra-“

“Mexico.” Tina interrupts, moving between the two men. She turns her head slightly as she passes Newt and mouths, “don’t.”

She stands by the windows behind the sofa, facing them as they linger by the table.

“He ought to know, Tina.” Newt reasons.

Tina shakes her head, hands now placed firmly on her hips. “It’s too dangerous,” her voice grave.

Jacob looks between them both and thinks that if he weren’t there, the fixed glares they were giving each other would escalate until the landlady below would know that a man had entered the premises.

Feeling the increasing need to referee, he steps into their line of sight and holds his hands out. “Hey... what’s all this about?” Then realisation dawns on him. “Is it... is it about Queenie?”

Newt considers the tone in his friend’s voice. He could hear his heart in the words. It was broken yet hopeful and he couldn’t bear to shatter what remained of it. “Yes. Queenie wants to come home, Jacob.”

This earns him an exasperated groan from Tina but a sanguine intake of breath from

Jacob. 

“She’s been in contact with our ministries,” Newt explains. “She wants to help us to take down Grindelwald.”

Jacob is incandescent with joy now and it was no mystery. If what Jacob had endured since Queenie’s defection was anything akin to how Newt himself felt during the past few months without Tina, he understands all too well how happy he was at the prospect of a reunion.

“What you got planned?”

“Well-” 

Tina steps back over to them before Newt could continue. “I’m sorry, Jacob. We can’t reveal anything more... it’d be dangerous for not only you but Queenie as well.”

The disappointment on Jacobs’s face is a stab in the heart for Newt but he knows Tina is right. It was safer to end the conversation there. 

“Have those marks on your wrists got something to do with it?”

Both Newt and Tina’s hands reach for the new scars starting to seep into their skin. They nod.

Jacob does too and says nothing more.

“Jacob,” Newt says lightly, breaking the tension. “Would you feel up to helping me feed the creatures some breakfast?”

This seemed to cheer the other man up significantly. He would never miss an opportunity to go down into the magical world that was Newt’s case. As such, he was already descending the narrow stairs down into the shed when Newt turns back to his wife, now staring into the fireplace, biting her nails. 

“Tina? Won’t you join us?”

She doesn’t make any sign to show she had heard him but answers anyway. “You go ahead. I’ve some errands to run.”

Newt has barely opened his mouth when a sudden impact to the air signals her disapparation.

_What am I going to do with her?_

...

The hours tick by in the case as Newt and Jacob catch up. With all the feeding and nursing out of the way, there was quite simply nothing left to do except play with the Zouwu via a large ball of conjured string which was gradually becoming lost in her elaborate and powerful tail.

“Hey Newt?”

Newt was standing on a boulder, hands in his trouser pockets as he observed the ceiling of his habitat, noticing a small tear in the case’s lining above the Occamy nest. _Must fix that_. “Hmm?”

“How come you didn’t come back with Tina in the spring?” Jacob doesn’t realise how loaded the question is as he inspects each miscellaneous item Dougal was offering him, the handbag from Macy’s Department Store dangling off his furry arm. 

“She didn’t tell you?” 

Jacob shakes his head. “The paper this morning mentioned an attack at your Ministry?”

“I don’t think she would like me for to say...” He remembers how she’d reacted when he told her of his drunken fumbles. This was another topic of discussion best left closed.

Yet, something seemed to twist in his gut and lurch in his heart, tightening until a sickly feeling engulfed his stomach. Jacob was his friend, his only friend apart from Tina. Friends share their troubles, don’t they? If only for the reprieve of having lightened the load.

And his heart strained with the impossible weight of it.

Newt moves down off the large rock and walks over to Jacob who was now standing with Dougal perched on his hip. “We were going to have a baby...” he dares, hearing the words spoken aloud restored the pain from months ago. “But I acted foolishly to start. I was afraid, you see.” Jacob nods, he’d known of Newt having to fake his death at least. “I was not even supposed to be near Tina at the time. It was too big of a risk.” The year they’d spent apart had been too difficult to endure without the occasional secret rendezvous. One in the previous winter had likely resulted in the predicament that followed. Newt remembers Tina had dropped the plate she was washing when he apparated into her apartment without telling her to expect him. The broken shards of china lay forgotten on the floor amongst their clothes.

“Eventually I came around. How could I not? I missed Tina and I wanted to be a father to that child so badly. Only…” Newt’s eyes lower, brimming with tears. He swallows them and inhales, bracing himself for the memory to come. “In the end, when I _should_ have been there, when she needed me most… I was too late.”

Of course, he’d been in time to save Tina but even she struggled to survive that first night. The healers at St. Mungo’s fought to close her wounds and temper the bleeding long enough to perform counter curses. It was a miracle she pulled through. Another would’ve been asking God too much. It was certainly more than fate had ever afforded them in the past. They just weren’t that lucky.

“She left a week later,” he finishes, collapsing onto another small rock. Jacob joins him, speechless. 

“I had no idea…”

“Tina doesn’t like to talk about it,” shrugs Newt, not surprised.

Jacob exhales deeply. “I think you gotta. Eventually.” It was true. There was no denying the level of miscommunication, the plethora of misunderstandings or the contrary nature of their behaviour with one another. One moment they’re flirting and the next, pining silently for the other, wiping away unshed tears and unspoken apologies.

Jacob is right, Newt decides. He and Tina needed to talk and preferably before they reach Rio where there would be quite another concern on their hands.

“Was Queenie involved?”

_What?_

“I’m sorry?”

“Queenie. Was she there that night? At the ministry?” Jacob clarifies, his expression divulging very little of what he hoped the answer would be.

It was a question Newt was hoping he would not have to answer. How could he tell the man that the love of his life had led Grindelwald straight into the Ministry of Magic and watched as he tortured her pregnant sister to the brink of death? Were there words soft enough to explain those events in a way that would not pierce Jacob’s already battered and bruised heart?

Blessedly, Tina had chosen that moment to lift the lid of Newt’s case and call down to him. “Newt! It’s time to go!”

An hour later the trio are standing on a platform at Grand Central Station. Theseus had booked them train tickets from New York City to New Orleans, where they would arrive the next afternoon to start their honeymoon which would lead them to Central Brazil in a fortnight. Ministry contacts would be waiting to meet them at Castleobruxo, South America’s wizarding school before they went on to Rio. All of this Newt repeated to himself as they made their way through the crowd.

“I bet you can’t wait to explore the rainforest, Newt!” Jacob grins at him.

Newt nods in subdued excitement. “The most i've seen of the Amazon was Equatorial Guinea in the winter of 1926.”

Tina and Jacob’s brows both furrow in confusion. “You were here in December of that year.”

“Oh,” chuckles Newt awkwardly, shifting his case in his hands. “I meant their winter, which is our summer…” He trails off, giving a geographical lesson on seasonal changes within the Southern Hemisphere which Tina was already familiar with, though she didn’t have the heart to interrupt him mid-chatter. His unencumbered babbling was endearing to her and she wishes he felt free enough to do it more often.

Jacob must’ve caught her staring at Newt adoringly because he smirks at her.

Tina blushes and looks down at her feet.

Suddenly, the obnoxious horn signalling the train’s imminent departure suspends Newt’s voice.

“Time to go, Newt.”

“Right you are, Tina.” He stands still for a moment, unsure how to go about his next action.

“We’ll see you soon,” Tina assures Jacob gently, taking Newt’s case from his now trembling hands, sensing what he wanted to do.

Newt silently thanks her as he steps forward to embrace his friend. “We’ll bring her back to you.” It’s a promise he knows he can’t keep but one he makes anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been relatively slow going so far but we’re getting close to the action (as well as the much needed talk between our favourite couple) now. Please keep coming back and kudosing/commenting to let me know you want me to continue!
> 
> Also, If anyone is interested in reading a brief timeline of events, I devised one to help myself stay on track, I realise it can often get confusing:
> 
> December 1926 - Events of the first film | Newt and Tina meet
> 
> September 1927 - Events of the second film | Relationship begins
> 
> December 1928 - Newt fakes his death and assumes disguise of Grindelwald fanatic
> 
> November 1929 - One of Newt and Tina’s secret meetings | Conception occurs (C6 Flashback)
> 
> January/February 1930 - Tina discovers she is pregnant 
> 
> March 1930 - Grindelwald’s attack on the ministry | Tina miscarries and Newt's cover blown
> 
> September/October 1930 - Present


	8. Chapter 8

Given how prone she was to travel-sickness, Tina had taken a draught of dreamless sleep once she and Newt settled into their sleeper car. She was initially reluctant to do so as noon had only just passed and Newt would undoubtedly have little to do without her to keep him company.

“Not so, Tina!” He’d countered. “Don’t you know I have an appointment with a certain Bowtruckle who has been planning on giving me an earful since you returned to London? He is very cross with me.”

It made Tina laugh out loud for the first time in she didn’t know how long. In the end, Newt insisted she get some sleep and leave him to a well-deserved scolding. She didn’t have the energy to refuse.

She fell to the sounds of chirping and low muffled chuckles.

Seconds later, or so it seemed to Tina, she was woken by what sounded like a barrage of gunfire as the door to their carriage burst open. Sitting bolt upright on the cot, the rasp of curtains being pulled back and the blinding tip of a wand met her eyes. Shielding them with one hand whilst the other grasped hopelessly for her own wand. In the time it would’ve taken her to repel the curse, she was already slammed back into the bed, pinned by the word “Crucio” in a malevolent and sinister voice.

She feels blood pool between her legs as the pain ripples throughout her body in waves, ebbing the depths of her nerve endings with an agony she’d felt only once before. She can feel herself losing consciousness as the blood continued to leave her body. She wills it to flow faster, to plunge her into the dark, forever and at last. Anything to be free of this pain.

A distant mumbling penetrates the white-hot ache and she can feel pressure on her shoulders. The mumbling becomes clearer, more distinct and the pressure grows fingers.

“Tina! Wake up, you’re having a nightmare Come on, love...” the now familiar sounds were ushering her back to the world. 

A sharp gasp and a tug upwards from the dream is enough to wake her; to find Newt’s concerned expression looking down at her. “Are you all right?” He asks gently, smoothing back the tussled hair at her temple.

Tina nods and wills herself to remain still so that he won’t withdraw his hand. “I’m sorry.”

Newt shushes her, one hand moving down to her waist, supporting his weight above her. “We all have nightmares every now and then.” It’s supposed to be comforting but Tina’s nightmares, or rather various inversions of the same memory, followed her like a shadow, a dark constant waiting until she surrendered to sleep to smother her. 

She doesn’t share any of this with Newt, certain that, despite what he’d said, he too played host to a dark twin that woke when he closed his eyes. Instead, she forces a meek smile, curling into his touch.

Neither of them moves for what felt like an hour, caught up as they were in the close proximity of the other. At one point, Tina turned her face against Newt’s hand and pressed her lips to his palm. Only just and ever so faintly, but it was a kiss, nonetheless. In response, his thumb caressed the slight clef in her chin, where he ordinarily would’ve placed his own mouth.

Similarly, Tina felt the muscles in Newt’s forearm tense against the thin material of her blouse. His sleeves are rolled up to reveal the barbed pattern of scars not unlike her own. “Does it bother you? The sting...” Tina asks him, her left hand ghosting against the pale hairs of his arm, not quite touching the skin she knew would burn upon contact.

Newt glances down between their bodies. “Not too bad that I can’t ignore it, but still-”

“Sore enough that you can’t forget it,” she finishes for him.

Newt smiles. Tina does too. She sits up, placing her hands around his elbows for leverage, but also to keep him from moving away. She might’ve asked for it in the past but right now, in this moment, she doesn’t want space. She is done with distance and the loneliness that filled the spaces between.

To her relief, he does not shift away. He presses both his hands against the mattress at her hips. His eyes drifting down to her mouth.

“Tina...” he breathes, so close that she can feel it against her face.

“Newt...” her voice is even weaker than his.

Once again, his hand gravitates towards her face, his thumb traces her cheek bone whilst his ring and forefinger roam the delicate grooves of her ear. Tina can feel the cool metal of his ring against her helix and wonders if he could feel hers as her fingers entwine with his free hand on the bedclothes. 

The silence circulating the train car was not an uncomfortable one. It was a stillness that aligned perfectly with the calm they were instilling in each other while the sounds of the train deadened the longer the moment continued. They had not been this close since Tina had yanked him out of his case and they’d tumbled onto the floor of his basement together

“I miss you,” Newt hesitates, his voice low and his eyes drifting from hers. There’s a sadness in them that he can’t hide well, not from her.

Tina inclines her head to catch them. “I’m right here.”

He lifts his head to meet her eyes, unwavering and pensive. “Are you?”

She opens her mouth to say something, to confirm that yes of course she is, but no sound escapes. Instead, it curls back down her throat and into her stomach, lurching with an uncertainty only two ex-lovers thrust into a marriage of convenience could know. _Am I?_ She repeats Newt’s question. One minute she’s caught up in the trauma of the past and the next, in him, his arms. 

“I want to be…” but is she ready?

Newt seems to have read these thoughts because his other hand cups her cheek, framing her face. “I’ll wait however long it takes.” The kindness of his conviction was winsome in a way that makes Tina’s heart beat faster.

Their faces are only a few inches away from each other now, and when Tina leans in to him, he doesn't make any effort to pull back. Without thinking or reasoning, she brushes her lips lightly against his but doesn’t press further, relaxing there so that he could make the decision. This was a mutual affair and Tina feels her desires were clear with her hands placed firmly on his chest, teasing the buttons of the shirt. 

Newt’s hands are still on her face, one pushing back the hair from eyes. He’s about to close his lips against hers when a loud knocking separates them. “Ticket Check!” Announces the conductor at the door, completely oblivious to what he’d just interrupted.

Newt clears his throat as he pushes himself up from the cot, fixing his waistcoat. Tina is left to tame her hair and gather her senses, embarrassed and disappointed. 

“Good evening, Mister.” She hears the other man’s voice when Newt opens the door, though not completely so as to give her some privacy. “Travelling alone?”

“No,” Newt answers. “My wife is...”

Before he can finish, the conductor boldly careens his head around the door to see Tina, now getting up from the cot, hands covering the front of her blouse.

“Oh!” The realisation seems to dawn upon the man when he sees her and notes the disordered bundle of sheets behind her. “Apologies, Ma’am,” tipping his hat slightly, though he turns to Newt and winks before walking to the next cabin.

When he closes the door, Newt stares at it for a moment, too nervous to turn around.

“It’s okay, Newt.” 

He turns. “What?” She has her back to him, staring out of the wide window at the passing greenery, her arms folded, back stiff. _Oh no._

“It’s likely just as well. We can’t afford to be reckless again.” It’s decisive and resolute. The moment has passed and she is retreating back into herself once more. Whatever secret part of herself she bore to him moments ago was now masked from view, hiding from world, from him.

“Tina, I think we ought to talk. We have time.” They were stuck in tight quarters for another eighteen hours and Newt would’ve preferred to not suffocate with the tension that had been clouding over them for the past week. He wasn’t sure how much more of it he could take. He was gasping for air.

“It can wait.” She bends down to open his case. She often retreated into it to spend some time with the Demiguise who never demanded anything of her. Newt understood this all too well. He only wishes she wouldn’t do so to get away from him.

“But-“

“Please, Newt.” Tina sighs, her eyes closed. “Just stop.”

With that, she slips down into the case and Newt is left alone. 

The remainder of the journey passes in a now uncomfortable, stifling silence.

…

The afternoon of their final day of travel brings with it a humidity that makes Newt’s hair frizz up and Tina’s jacket unnecessary. When they alight the train compartment and step onto the platform, the lingering remnants of summer in Louisiana hits them like a gust of hot air. Tina wishes she’d worn a skirt instead of her wonted black slacks.

The French Quarter is relatively deserted in the mid-afternoon haze - an uncustomary siesta sending the locals back indoors - save for a few guileless tourists and a lonesome busker playing his saxophone aridly to the memory of an audience.

Newt takes pity on the man and flips a couple of muggle coins into the panama at his feet.

He catches up with Tina who was looking for the most secluded alleyway to apparate, though it seemed pointless given the vacant streets. He remembers years earlier she’d scolded him about the Statue of Secrecy and how it was their responsibility to maintain it. “Yes, yours too,” she reminded him when he playfully rolled his eyes. He misses their blithe bickering. 

Tina doesn’t offer to go side-along so it surprises him when she takes his arm once they come upon the entrance to their hotel. “Okay. Here we go,” she starts, adjusting her hold on him, “just imagine we’re the happiest couple alive.”

Newt wishes he could make that a reality. 

“Bienvenue au Vieux Carré!” Greets an overzealous concierge as soon as they’ve entered the foyer. The establishment is owned by a wizarding family with contacts at MACUSA and many of its guests have been employees Tina is acquainted with. It also welcomed those from the non-magical community, which is why, Newt guesses, there are no outward signs of magic in the décor and furnishings. 

They approach the front desk arm in arm. “Mr and Mrs Scamander, checking in.”

“Ah yes! Ze honeymoon suite has just been prepared for you, with a special request from your brother.” The grinning man explains in a pitiful attempt at a French accent they know is fake: his clear pronunciation of the letter H was a dead giveaway.

He disappears below the granite counter and retrieves a bottle of champagne and an extensive bokeh of flowers whose petals change colour when jostled. Among the arrangement of carnations nestled several tiny vials containing a deep violet potion, shimmering in the low light. Attached was a note that read “safety first, lovebirds”.

“Oh, how thoughtful,” strains Tina, trying to hide her grimace. “We must thank him. Don’t you think, love?”

Newt nods, forcing a smile towards the curious onlooker. “You’re quite right, darling.” He unlinks his arm from Tina’s and curves it around her waist, his hand placed on her hip, pulling her closer. Its bold and he knows it but if they were going to sell the image of a happy couple, he would do his best to deliver. They didn’t say anything about no enjoying it. “He really has gone above and beyond for us.” Theseus would be expecting a very _grateful_ letter in the next round of owl-post at the ministry. 

The concierge beams at them, his neck stiff in a way that appeared almost animatronic, somehow falser than his accent. His eyes scan the lobby and the street outside before he snaps his fingers, whooshing their luggage out of their hands and up to their room with the gift from Theseus. It reminded Newt of magic a house-elf might perform.

A superfluous bellboy is summoned to lead them to the room they could’ve found on their own just as well.

They follow in spite of themselves, hands clasped and shoulders close.

The boy holds the door open for them, but they don’t let go of each other as they pass the threshold into the spacious suite. “If you need anything, tap the coin you’ll find on the duvet with your wand and someone will be right along.” He hovers by the entryway a little longer than necessary, waiting for the customary tip Newt was still unaccustomed to but familiar with owing to how often he once frequented the states to see Tina.

“Thank you, this will be perfect,” Tina remarks, waving her hand over her pocket to transfer a small sum to the boy’s burgundy uniform.

He tips his matching cap at her obligingly and leaves them alone with a final lacklustre “enjoy your stay.”

The sound of the deadbolt releases their hands and drops their smiles. Newt is left standing in the centre of the room as he watches Tina move to unpack.

“We need to be seen out in the town,” she decides with her back to him, holding up articles of clothing to inspect before folding each on the chaise lounge upon which Newt takes a seat, his arm feeling suddenly lonely.

“There’s an apothecary run by a witch Graves tells me is of the same beliefs as Grindelwald.” She’s removing her coat now, throwing it down on the bed before reaching down to unlace her shoes. “You remember Abernathy?”

“The rather small man who supervised you at the Wand Permit office?” Newt takes pride in his memory, never failing him when it came to Tina and their first week together. He would recall any detail, however small, should she ask him. He could remember the exact drinks she ordered, but didn’t touch, in The Blind Pig; the look on her face when President Picquery had removed the surveillance bracelet from her wrist; each individual jewel stitched into the dress she wore that night to celebrate being reinstated. In afterthought, he might’ve fallen in love with her that same night.

Tina nods. “Right. Well, she knows him, he was seen paying her a visit when he was here last month. Didn’t leave her place until the next morning.” The implication makes Newt blush, his palms clam up and his eyes to drift over to the distasteful bokeh that seemed to be missing a couple of the vials. 

She passes in the corner of his vision, busying herself, filling up the moments. She’s avoiding something. Probably the talk he’d mentioned back on the train. Sometimes she was just too stubborn for her own good and his sanity. He wishes she would just slow down and come back to him. To let him hold her and be done with the dancing around one another.

“So, we go and make our intentions clear. Show her that we are interested in joining the cause.” She continues after everything in her case was settled into drawers and the wardrobe. “A spark-”

“To light the fuse,” finishes Newt. She meets his eyes for the first time in almost a day but says nothing except “I’m gonna change. I think you should, too. Something a little flashy.” She reaches for the package she’d pulled out of her case last and steps into the en suite.

Newt is left at the foot of the bed, wracking his brain trying to decipher just what she meant by flashy.

…

To his relief, it hadn’t meant what her sister, or indeed his brother, might’ve considered.

Tina emerges from the bathroom thirty minutes after first disappearing dressed in a magnificent royal blue and black dress that hugged her curves and accentuated her long neck and narrow waist. The v-cut was low and wide enough that her delicate collarbones and shoulders were on display, but still high enough to preserve some semblance of modesty. While the bodice adorned dark jewels sown in an intricate pattern against her torso, the hem was simple around her mid-thigh, fringing down below the knee. The back, although she hadn’t yet turned to show him, was likely an entirely different affair that makes him gulp at the prospect.

Her makeup was light and natural but still marked a noticeable change to her features. Her lips were coated in a ruby red that caught the light and her eyelashes seemed impossibly longer, framing her onyx eyes in a way that made them all the more captivating.

She is dressed to the nines and Newt feels entirely inadequate and undeserving next to her.

He had chosen for himself a dark grey suit, expertly tailored to his muscled frame, obscuring his lankier regions from view. His suspenders were a deep navy beneath the matching grey waist coat, but the tie was a shade of blue that coordinated perfectly with the colour of her dress. 

He catches Tina eyeing him. “You look good, Newt. Relax.” He wonders whether she can.

It wasn’t often they dressed up like so. It was still beneath Theseus and Queenie’s standard of evening wear, but it was bordering on ostentatious for Tina and himself. Though, for all the discomfort he knew she was feeling, she held herself with confidence and a grace which could rival that of her sister. Not that he was in a habit of comparing them. No one could compare to his Tina, in the end.

She is stunning and his heart was bursting in his chest from just staring at her.

“Shall we, then?” Tina interrupts his thoughts, now wearing a drop-waist jacket in navy that made the outfit appear less formal. 

Newt nods and smooths down his suit jacket, offering her his arm to disapparate.

She takes it and his heart beats faster still.

They arrive at the destination at once and find that it appears to be no more than a derelict side store, long since forsaken and left dismantled by the most recent hurricane season. Its blackened windows cracked at the corners and the odd display piece left behind reminds Newt of St. Mungo’s and its muggle-worthy facade.

He shares a knowing look with Tina who silently reminds him that they’ve got a role to play and the curtain was about to be drawn back.

They step up and through the glass together, greeted by a chiming bell that seemed to come from all directions. 

The first thing they notice is that the shop is dark and the air, heavy. It was hard for their lungs to adjust to the new, low level of oxygen.

“We’re closing soon,” came a voice from a back corner, hidden behind towering shelves of boxes and jars. A young red-haired woman with a wearied expression appears from behind one, giving them both a once over, gauging the threat they might pose with one hand on her wand that is tucked against her side. 

“But not yet,” Tina challenges, a defiant quirk to her voice.

She releases his arm and begins to roam the wide array of products on display. Tina no doubt would’ve made note of all the illegal items she’d have arrested the proprietor for were she not undercover. Newt, on the other hand, found himself sick to the stomach at the produce acquired from creatures, both magical and non, labelled crudely in tight containers. He held his tongue, however. A part was to be played on his end as well. He was still in the thick of the first act.

“I don’t suppose you make many sales with that fogging charm out front.” It sounds absentminded but Newt knows Tina is being calculating. “Wouldn’t it be a more lucrative venture to open the door to a wider range of clientele?”

It hits a nerve; the target. “I won’t have muggles in my shop!” The young witch snaps, observing their hands closely. 

Newt attends to use of the term muggle and decides to take a turn. “Ah! A fellow Brit,” he begins, trying to appear assured of himself with a straight spine and a poised grin. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss?” He reaches for her hand. 

With a sneer, she yanks it out of his grasp. “None of your business.”

Tina giggles lightly behind him. He feels her hand firm on his shoulder before she comes into view, her other hand on his stomach, tucking herself into his side. “Now is that any way to treat a customer?” He loops his arm around her, pulling her closer, the tip of his nose against her temple, unable to look away from her profile.

He must appear to the shopkeeper as a man besotted and completely in love with his wife. In truth, he is. It was the most genuine part of their performance. It would not, like their debonair and devil-may-care attitude, come off with the costumes they now wore. It was true and persistent. 

“You’re not here to buy anything. I sensed that the moment you walked in.”

Newt lets Tina take the lead, she seemed far better at this than him. Without the help of another man’s identity, he struggled to make himself, awkward and annoying Newt Scamander, seem at all intimidating and suave. With her charming and self-assured example, however, he’s confident he’ll learn.

She ignores the other woman’s remark. “I can’t say I blame you... about the no-majs.”

“They’d take one look at your shop and stage a coup on the sidewalk with their Salem revival pamphlets and Puritan preaching.” The contempt in her tone is palpable and it makes her fellow witch relax slightly in their presence.

“Yeah, heard you get a lot of that in New York.” Tina’s slight but conspicuous twang in her accent must’ve divulged from where she hailed.

Tina shrugs, her fingers readjusting themselves on his shoulder. “Not so much anymore. Barebone was dispatched a few years back. Not a moment too soon, if you ask me.” She turns to Newt, their noses touching now. “Right, baby?”

He can only nod in response, stunned by her beauty and the sexiness with which she carried herself, how she spoke to him. The feeling of her against him causes his blood to rush and his trousers to tighten.

“I heard the Obscurial got her.”

Tina rolls her eyes. “Who do you think planted the idea in his head?” They knew her attack on Mary-Lou Barebone and the mass obliviation that followed had been reported in The New York Ghost. It was not a stretch of the imagination to assume it had also reached national papers. It wasn’t every day an elite MACUSA employee attacked a no-maj, in broad daylight no less. The woman before them now would probably have read about it.

“You were demoted for that, dearest,” Newt nudges her playfully.

“One less no-maj in the world? Worth it.” She declares with a malicious grin that the other witch could see.

It's enough to convince her because she has leaned back against the counter by the till and nods in agreement. “Good riddance to them all, I say.”

“Hear, hear.” Newt toasts to that, his fingers pressing into Tina’s hipbone.

Eventually, the witch felt comfortable enough to formally introduce herself. Her name was Pomona Ambrosio and she’d inherited the apothecary from her grandmother who loathed muggles and blood-traitors alike to the point no half-blooded witch or wizard could phase through the enchanted glass if they wanted to keep their skin. 

“Of course, if I wanted to keep the shop running, I had to lift that barrier. There are simply not enough purebloods left to make ends meet,” Pomona had told them over a glass of firewhiskey, reverberating her shared beliefs in blood superiority for the better part of an hour before the conversation inevitably found its way to Grindelwald. She seemed especially proud to be on intimidate terms with one of his closest acolytes.

“I worked at MACUSA with him,” Tina added after another false sip of her drink. Newt knows she likes to remain clearheaded while she worked, but he found great comfort in the amber liquid, calming his nerves and making him appear more relaxed. He was on his third glass.

“If only I’d known I was among such a like-minded colleague, perhaps enduring Picquery’s feeble leadership might’ve been easier.” Tina goes onto explain it had been difficult to pretend she was in favour of the President’s protection of the non-magical community, but that it was in her interest to abide for appearances sake. “Better to stay close to the enemy.”

Pomona doesn’t dispute this but instead expresses her admiration. “Smart.”

After swallowing another large gulp of the alcohol, his throat burning, Newt interjects. “If only Grindelwald knew what MACUSA was planning, where they’re weakest.”

Tina catches his eye briefly. “Oh, the things I could tell him,” she adds with a conniving smirk, their joint effort urging much intrigue in their redheaded company.

Their eyes move from each other to steal a glance at her. Her stare was distant but focussed. Weighing their words, scheming.

She had taken the bait.

…

It was nearing nine p.m. when Newt and Tina finally left Pomona’s shop. She’d given them each a trinket to commemorate their marriage with no charge and a “don’t be strangers”.

Newt decided it was cause for celebration. Though Tina thinks his already inebriated state was the culprit.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough, Newt?” She eyes him warily, concerned.

Newt shrugs, “you’re the one who said we need to be seen out in the town.” That is true. It would, after all, be a shame for her dress and his suit to go to waste. “So? Join me, Mrs Scamander?” He was smiling brightly with a playful, carefree glint in his eye she rarely saw.

How could she refuse that face?

…

In hindsight, she realises she should have.

Sometime between Newt’s seventh or eighth drink and the jazz band’s final song, Tina put her foot down and grabbed Newt around the waist and disapparated.

When they appear in their hotel room in the small hours, she is struggling to keep him upright.

“Bed,” she commands as she starts walking them over to it.

“Hmm yes. Bed, indeed.” Newt murmurs, turning in her arms and grabbing a hold of her waist and burying his face in her neck, kissing, sucking and nibbling. His hands splay out on her back.

“Newt, no.” She doesn’t want to push him away, the feeling of his mouth against her skin was tempting and makes her insides squirm in all the right places. But he’s drunk and that was quite enough to shame him come morning.

Sensing her stiffen in his arms, Newt releases his grip and stumbles away feeling rejected. “You’re so confusing, Tina!” He doesn’t need to explain because she knows he’s talking about the moment on the train the day before or perhaps he meant how she’d tried to seduce him on the night of their wedding. Or indeed, why not, the masked ball when her inhibitions had blown caution to the wind and practically encouraged his advance.

He’s not at all wrong but she says, “don’t start,” as she turns to take her coat and shoes off. Too tired to get into it.

Newt groans dramatically, his arms flailing at his sides like a sullen teenager. He approaches the balcony doors and swings them open and steps outside under the awning. “Hello world! My name is Newt Scamander and my wife is the most contrary woman to walk the planet!” His arms are outstretched as he proclaims up to the moon.

Fearing they’d make a scene, Tina leapt out of her shoes and rushes over to the balcony. “Newt, stop it! Get inside!” She takes a hold of his arm at the elbow and tugs gently. “You’ll wake the other guests.”

“I don’t bloody care!” He pulls his arm free of her grasp and stumbles away indignantly.

He slumps down on the side of the mattress, his back hunched and his arms loose and limp by his sides. “I’m so tired.” But seems hopeless. 

The wounded look in his eyes is difficult to witness. He is hurting and Tina knows it’s because of her. She approaches tentatively, her own eyes mournful, riddled with guilt.

“I’ve missed you,” Newt exhales in an audible whisper. His head bobs from side to side, compelling Tina to reach out and steady his shoulders. “So much.” His head falls against her middle as his hands hang onto her hips. “I know I hurt you and I know I deserved it…. 

Tina squeezes her eyes shut, burning, already starting to swell with tears. How could she have done this to him? This kind, sweet and patient man who never wished harm on any living soul.

“But now you’re back and you look at me like you never hated me, and it makes me hope I’m forgiven,” he continues, voice muffled slightly by his face pressed against her stomach. “You touch me like you want me but then you push me away.” If it were not for the fabric of her dress, Tina would feel a dampness there.

“I just don’t understand.” It sounds lost with a desperate longing to be found.

It breaks Tina’s heart and no matter how tight she squeezes her eyes, a single tear manages to escape, falling down over her cheek. She can taste the saltiness of it on her lips. The bitterness rivalled how she feels about herself for having reduced Newt to this pitiful state he’d surely regret when he wakes.

“Do you hate me?” It’s a question that perhaps hurts the most. It has sharp edges and it cuts into her gut.

Tina steps back and out of his arms and slowly takes a seat beside him, her eyes focussed on her hands. He’s watching her. She inhales…

“I wanted to...” he deserves only honesty now.

“When you rejected the baby at the beginning. I wanted to hate you. I felt like I was alone, and I’d be no better than a single parent when they arrived.” If there was anything she could blame Newt for, it was leaving her to face those obstacles alone. She understood his apprehension and the fear he felt, but her pregnancy, despite how short it was, had been difficult. She needed him and he wasn’t always there. And yet, she still couldn’t hate him for it. 

Newt is gaping at her now, hanging on her every word. He’d waited so long for this talk and now she was finally relenting. It didn’t matter if it hurt him, he just needed to hear. It needed to be said. “I tried so hard to hate you after everything. But then you sent the first letter, then another and another.” She received an owl thrice weekly for the first month, often accompanied by complaints from her disgruntled landlady’s who had been suspicious regarding the masculine handwriting. “They were so full of apologies and regrets that I knew you didn’t deserve any of it. You put your heart into those letters.” And she felt her own rip open with each break of a wax seal.

Tina inhales once more, the rest seemed to stick beneath the lump in her throat. “I knew it wasn’t your fault, but it was too hard to admit that it was mine...” It came with a long exhale. It was the first time she’d said it aloud and the reality of it was to her ears what a stake was to the heart. The tears flow freely now.

“No, Tina.” Newt shakes his head, shifting on the bed to face her better. “It wasn’t your fault.” She can tell he’s sobering up now by the careful sincerity in his voice. He takes her hands into his, urging her to look at him. 

“I’m an Auror, Newt. This is my job. I didn’t do it that night.” She wants to say she was an even worse mother but she couldn’t find the strength to admit that just yet.

She feels him squeeze her hand. “You wanted to believe Queenie. She is your sister and you love her.”

Tina blinks and finally meets his eyes. “I should’ve believed _you_. I never should have left.” She shouldn’t have waited for a request from the ministry. She should’ve returned sooner. She’d missed him, too. 

Her eyes overflow with tears. “I’m so sorry, Newt,” she sobs, her chest contorting with the force of it. “I can’t make up for the time we’ve lost or the pain and confusion I’ve put you through.”

Newt takes one of his hands and places it on her back of her neck, stroking the waves of her hair. “Then let’s have now. We’re together again. Let’s not waste any more time.”

He smiles at her through a similarly watery countenance and she leans her temple against his forehead and lets the emotion overtake her. The relief would come tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't stress enough how encouraging kudos and feedback are, so please, continue to hit that button if you haven't already and i'll try to keep the updates rolling in at this same rate. It's a little disheartening to see that hit counter rise but rarely receive kudos. So help a girl out and let me know if you enjoyed this chapter!


	9. Chapter 9

Having always considered himself a shrewd and responsible drinker, the seldom he indulged, Newt’s body was plunged into a state of shock when his eyes open to greet the new day. 

Everything seemed too much for his suffering, though somehow heightened, senses. The sun was too bright, the heat was too heavy, and the scrape of Tina’s quill against a scroll of parchment was too loud. His head was bursting with a number of unpleasant expletives that he felt himself become quite another person. He couldn't say he liked him.

“Ugh,” He groans through the daze, pushing himself up off the mattress, a hand pressed to his throbbing temple. The new position did not help to temper the nausea. 

“Let me guess,” Tina starts with a tone of amusement from the desk in the corner, her back to him. “Never drinking again?”

Newt glares daggers at the back of her head until his brain readjusts to reality and his memory of the night before washes over him. 

They finally talked. 

The alcohol induced agency with which he’d expressed his feelings was certainly worth the pounding headache and churning stomach that was now threatening to keep him bedridden for the day. It had offered Tina the opportunity to reciprocate with an honesty they’d both deserved. She’d opened up and trusted him enough to let him in, to witness the vulnerability she’d worked so hard to fortify.

To do so had been no easy task. Newt recalls the feeling of her tears mingling with his own as their faces pressed together. How she’d fallen into him whilst sobs ricocheted throughout her body. The weight of the past year had finally lifted, and it could only mean improvement from this point on.

They’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms, joining once again in the dream world in which there was no dark wizard to defeat, no toxic ideology to vanquish and no threat of young lives cut short. It was a world where there was no need for hasty marriages, Unbreakable Vows or undercover rescue missions. In sleep, Queenie had never crossed the fire. In dreaming, their child had lived.

It was as close to a Utopia they’d ever experience. They would be hard-pressed to find something quite as perfect when they woke. It was only natural that Newt had woken with his arms empty and Tina’s side of the bed cold.

Looking back over at her now, however, was quite the sight to behold. She had shifted in her seat sometime during Newt’s reminiscence. Her long, shapely legs crossed, hung over the side of the chair with the two folds of her gown parted up to her mid-thigh. Newt would’ve given anything to find the strength to be close enough to touch her there.

She wasn’t dressed but her hair was wet, telling him she’d only recently awoken herself. Long enough to shower and acquire a small ampule of a menacing looking potion she’d left on the nightstand by his side of the bed.

She must have sensed him eyeing it suspiciously because she sets her quill in the ink bottle and turns to him. “It’s a tonic. Queenie’s own brew.” It has a reddish-orange hue that reminded Newt dangerously of the deep amber colour of firewhiskey. “Trust me,” he does. “It works. I can’t tell you how many times I was able to face a full day of work after a binge the night before.”

Newt understood that being an Auror was an emotionally taxing career, as well as a physically draining one. He’d lived with Tina for the better part of two years and had inevitably witnessed how far a particularly difficult case would send her into the bottle. Likewise, he’d found his brother at the bottom of one many times, especially following Leta’s death.

It makes him wonder (and worry) how often Tina brewed this same potion for herself in the months they’d spent apart. When the pain of a mother’s loss overwhelmed her and required the numbing comfort of alcohol. Admittedly, he too had surrendered to its embrace on those darker, lonelier nights.

He reaches for the bottle and throws back its contents in one large gulp, trying to avoid his taste-buds to prevent an abrupt trip to the loo which would’ve been inconvenient since Tina had just disappeared behind the door.

One glance at the clock on the wall tells him it had just gone past breakfast time for his creatures. If he made them wait much longer, he’d never hear the end of it.

Mindful of his still sensitive stomach, he steps up and off the bed to collect his shoes. He remembers kicking them off carelessly when first stumbling onto the bed in a drunken heap but is not surprised to find them neatly tucked underneath the chaise lounge. Elsewhere in the room, his case was, as always, settled within eyeshot of the bed. Something he’d been adamant about since first procuring it as a mobile habitat for some of his magical wards.

He shakes his head with a smile and sighs Tina’s name admirably. She knew him so well. So tentative to his needs, however pernickety they may be.

When he has one shoe tied, Tina emerges from the en suite dressed in only a skirt and her silk brassiere.

Accustomed as they were to seeing each other in a more extensive state of undress, Newt doesn’t blink upon seeing more of her skin than usual. Though he does appreciate the view. Too much for his already tight fitted trousers, it seemed.

She was rifling through one of the drawers for what Newt assumes was the missing article of clothing. He takes the moment to marvel at the definition of her back and arm muscles, expertly grafted by the more physical Auror activities. When she turns with the chosen blouse in her hands, her abdominals display a similar tautness. 

Other, more sinister tell-tale signs of her profession were also visible on her skin. Some of the nastier, more stubborn scars remained but not one, Newt notices, from the torture curse. It was just as well. She didn’t need the reminder every time she caught sight of her reflection. 

Newt had familiarised himself with each and every one of the foreign grazes on her skin. The stories behind and why Tina had chosen to keep them had been a frequent post-coital topic of discussion as his fingers caressed her body. From the childhood accident involving a broomstick and a keen determination to prove herself to a surprise ambush by bootleggers in a vacant alley in Brooklyn. His hands and tongue knew each scar intimately.

All but one. 

Tina has her arms through the sleeves of the blouse when Newt approaches her. “Tina, what...” his hand moves to her hip and with his thumb, caresses two long, lightning shaped indents on her lower belly. The slight redness stuck out against the creamy, unmarked skin beside them. “Where did this come?”

Her eyes seem to water at once, her breathing hitch at feel of his touch. The silence between them is absolute for a moment before she speaks. “The baby.”

Understanding dawns on Newt immediately. She had been so small to start that the rapid growth of her belly had left its mark, a permanent reminder that she’d once carried another soul. 

Gazing deep into her eyes, he doesn’t need to ask why she’d kept this one.

They stand there, in the centre of the room, holding each other for a time. No pressing need to break apart, no tugging nudge to separate. They could finally mourn together, shouldering each other's pain. Mere hours from the long-awaited reconciliation, their chests already felt lighter.

The rest of the morning passes in subdued silence with Newt coming and going from his case and Tina sending coded owls to various people. One of whom was his brother, and another, Graves.

“Codes can be broken, Tina.” Newt had warned when she’d sent off the first one.

“I’ve enchanted them so they can only be read by the intended recipient,” she’d told him with a false outrage that makes him smile.

She had transferred the writing slope to her lap so that she could enjoy the balcony and the view of the courtyard below. The hotel was quaint but the sizeable property grounds allowed for a spacious lounging and communal area for the guests and their children. Two of which, sisters Tina assumed, were chasing each other around the water fountain, cooling themselves down by the spatter rebounding off the aged teal stone.

Naturally it transports her back to her childhood with Queenie. Before their parents died and the world was still kind. It makes her want to get to Rio faster.

The sounds from the city beyond the hotel marked a significant change in the busyness of the streets from the time she and Newt had arrived the previous afternoon. Granted, the mid-morning hustle and bustle could not compare to New Orleans nightlife which Newt had sampled a little too rigorously only hours ago. 

He was still nursing a headache despite Queenie’s tonic. Dougal had been hovering around him since he’d opened the case, something that was not uncharacteristic of the Demiguise who could sense the slightest shift in a person’s health. When Tina was pregnant, he’d so often outright refused to leave her side that eventually Newt had given up trying to coax him back into the case each night. His invisibility made it impossible when he didn’t want to be found.

Tina never helped him look as she appreciated Dougal’s company after deciding she would not be sharing a bed with Newt any longer.

Currently, Newt was wearing him like backpack whilst Pickett complained up at him. “You’ve got to learn to share, Pick,” reprimands Newt. “Especially now that Tina and I are married and on good terms again.” Pickett blows a raspberry at this and retreats back into his breast pocket.

“Serves you right. You spoiled him,” chuckles Tina lightly from the balcony. She was reclining back in her chair now, letting the bare skin of her face, arms and legs absorb the sun. The natural auburn highlights in her hair were visible in the light, adding a new richness to the deep chocolate shade. Newt thinks she looks beautiful as he defends himself.

“He had a cold, Tina!” and she rolls her eyes with a shake of her head, smiling.

This same light-hearted contentment continued well into the afternoon during which neither of them had left their hotel room. Of course, there was the persistent matter that they had to be seen enjoying their honeymoon. But no one would’ve suspected anything of a newly married couple spending an entire day in their hotel. On the contrary, it was rather expected of them. At least that’s what they told themselves come eight p.m. when they ordered room-service and placed the ‘do not disturb’ charm on the door.

After dinner, Newt invites Tina into the case with him to help with the evening rounds. He’d brought with him the Zouwu, Pickett, Dougal, Niffler and a pair of mated Hippogriffs. The latter of which had been sent to Newt via his mother who was unfortunately unable to accommodate for another flock.

“Between you and me, I think she’s getting on a bit,” Newt reveals to Tina who gasps with a mild reproof. “It’s strenuous work!” He reasons, proven by the female who was nudging his back incessantly for attention.

“I don’t think age could stop your mother from anything,” Tina remarks as she throws a rodent carcass into the air for the male to catch.

Newt’s mother was a formidable woman revered by many in the magical community. She also harboured a kindness that was a scarcity in the troubled times of late. It was not difficult to see from whom Newt had inherited much of his own gentle nature.

**_Approximately two years ago…_**

“You are not telling her!” Theseus yelled toward Tina who was roughly ten paces in front of him, marching up the gravel path toward Scamander manor.

“She has a right to know!” She repeated for what seemed like the umpteenth time in the past 20 minutes. She had disapparated from the ministry to the small village in a hurry and Theseus had followed, determined to stop her before she could reach her destination.

Fortunately for Tina, Theseus had sustained an injury a few days previous that slowed him somewhat.

As such, she’s pounding her knuckles on the black wood of the imposing doors before he has reached the steps.

The resident house-elf Monty appeared at the door only seconds later. “Miss Tina. What a surprise. My mistress will be pleased to see you.” He looked behind her. “and Master Theseus! Welcome home, Sir.”

“Monty,”. Theseus managed through ragged breaths. “Don’t let Tina see mother.”

Of course, Monty wouldn’t have been able to disobey this command, but it was rendered moot when the mother in question had appeared from the side of the house.

“Theseus? Tina?” The look of surprise on her face mirrored Monty’s, except it was laden with a bright, welcoming smile. She glanced around them, searching. “Where’s Newt?”

Tina and Theseus exchange haunted looks, their heads falling. The younger of the two approaches the older woman.

“Celeste,” Tina begins. “He’s alive but he won’t be coming home for a while.”

In spite of himself, Theseus does not stop her. It would’ve been safer and ideal if himself and Tina had been the only ones privileged to the information, but he couldn’t deny that she was right. His mother deserved to know the truth. He was doubtful he could keep it from her for very long.

Celeste’s eyes are searching Tina’s for clarity. “What do you mean, my dear? Why can’t he come home?” Her tone is soft and patient. It breaks Tina’s heart to be telling her this. Tears forming in her eyes betrayed her to Theseus who thankfully stepped in and ushered both her and his mother into the house.

He explained that, to the world, Newt Scamander was dead and would remain a as such until Grindelwald was brought to heel. It was only when he told his mother they couldn’t see him until then that the floodgates opened and sobs overcame Tina.

Celeste’s arms are around her in an instant, offering what comfort only a mother could. “Oh, my dear one.”

Tina felt guilty for imposing her dramatics upon the woman whose youngest son was all but lost to her, but she found herself frequenting Scamander manor in the weeks to follow, searching for that same comfort.

She would sleep in Newt's childhood bedroom, feeling a part of him with her still. For a few days it would help, until the misery crept beneath the floorboards and she had to escape. Though Newt's house in London wasn't any less depressing in his absence and New York served little to silence it because the hole Queenie had left replaced it with a more bitter type of loneliness.

“I wish you would stay with us,” Celeste had hoped each time she stood at the gates to return to London. “Your presence is such a comfort.” Which was another reason Tina returned so often. She felt useful there, wanted and welcome. Such was how Celeste made her feel.

Her kindness knew no bounds and Scamander manor quickly became a sanctuary for Tina, however brief her visits became.

**_Present day..._ **

Watching Newt tend to his creatures so delicately and lovingly reminds Tina of his mother. She wonders if their child would’ve inherited the natural tenderness that seemed to accompany hazel eyes.

There it was again. She couldn’t stop her thoughts from finding their way to the baby that might’ve been. No matter how much it hurt to do so, it seemed quite as natural that she should think of him or her as if it were something like breathing.

“Tina!” Newt interrupts her thoughts. “Come and see!” Grateful for the distraction, she follows his voice behind a group of trees in the Hippogriff enclosure to find him kneeling inside the hollowed-out trunk of the largest. There lay a large bird’s nest within which nestled an opal coloured egg. From a distance it appeared to be covered in scales that reflected the light, but upon closer inspection, she saw that the pattern resembled that of a Hippogriff’s neck feathers, overlapping one another in sharp oval shapes.

“It finally happened!” He beamed excitedly, caressing the tip of the egg with such care that makes Tina’s heart burst. “It’ll be hatching within the next twenty-four hours.”

“I suppose we’ll be sleeping in the shed tonight then?” Tina inquires, knowing full well Newt will want to maintain a watchful eye over the hatchling.

“Well... not if you don’t want to. There’s a perfectly good bed upstairs in our room. I’m sure you’ll find it more comfortable.” He’s hiding his face behind his hair once again, afraid that she might agree with him.

“I like yours better,” she smiles, pushing back his curls so that he would look at her.

Sometime later, they’ve settled into the small double bed in the additional room of his hut, the door left wide open and facing the Hippogriffs.

Newt lay stiff and still at first, staring up at the gaps in the wood panels. He was mindful not to touch her, despite how loudly his insides screamed at him to reach out. 

Thankfully, Tina was more daring than him and once she’d settled under the duvet, she shuffled toward him and lay down on her side facing him, only the breadth of her arm between them. “Relax, Newt.”

He turns his head to look at her with her head propped up by her elbow.

“It’s just me; just us.” The comforting smile she flashed him seemed to calm his nerves and relax his muscles.

“Just us,” he repeats in a contented whisper.

Tina inhales and closes her eyes. “Good night, Newt.”

Newt take the opportunity to study her face, absent of stress and pain. It makes him happy to know she feels this way in his presence. “Good night, love.”

In the fortnight that follows, as they travel from place to place, the space between them gets gradually smaller until Tina abandoned all grievances and had taken to sleeping on Newt’s chest if he didn’t spoon her throughout the night. They were slowly becoming comfortable with each other again and even Pickett had stopped bleating whenever Newt joined Tina under the covers. One morning he’d found the Bowtruckle sleeping in her hair, which he fervently denied ever happening.

The latest addition to the case only served to bond them further as the baby Hippogriff had, at first, been rejected by her inexperienced mother and as such, had to be bottle fed every two hours. If it weren’t for Dougal’s tendency to babysit the other creatures, Newt and Tina wouldn’t have been seen in public for the majority of their honeymoon.

In the weekend between the two weeks journey to Brazil, they received an owl from Theseus urging them to make more of an effort as reporters were starting to grow suspicious, evidenced by the assorted article clippings he’d attached to his letter.

“Two prudish workaholics like themselves can’t possibly be spending their time idle in various hotel rooms across the Americas,” impugned The Daily Prophet. 

“If humans could multiply like rabbits, the newly wedded Scamanders would have their own colony by now,” quipped The New York Ghost.

Even the Parisian paper Le Cry de la Gargouille had published its own flamboyant theories pertaining to their sudden disappearance. When they arrived in Columbia, one of the local tabloids, so named El Místico, had printed a rather exciting piece detailing an underground Crup fighting society that Newt and Tina were planning on infiltrating and would surely spend much of their alleged honeymoon planning such an “apoderarse del control” _._

Tina had spent an hour trying to convince Newt that if any such illegal organisation existed, the Columbian Ministry would investigate. Besides, they didn’t have time to stray from their objective, already half a day late in meeting their appointed liaison at Castleobruxo. This was chiefly on account of Newt insisting they absolutely must stop to document Nogtails in rural Poza Rica. They'd ran into some trouble with a disgruntled farmer who was setting traps for the creatures to keep them from ravaging his harvest. Newt's intolerance for blinkered people reared its head when the man shook his cane at them. It had taken Tina and the farmer's wife stepping in to pacify their respective husbands.

Such is what Tina tells the Headmistress of the school upon their arrival.

They are making their way up the seemingly endless sandstone staircase that seemed to imbed itself into the moss-covered terrain of a massive golden rock, hidden deep within the lush and wild Amazon Rainforest. The bright green robes of the students they passed seemed to camouflage into the surrounding landscape, obscuring them from any would-be-attacker.

Isaura Xavier, the current headmistress of Castleobruxo, was standing at the top of the rock with a poise full of subdued pride. The imposing temple-like structure behind her blocks out the sun and casts Newt and Tina in a reprieving shade. Newt’s nose and her forearms were already starting to burn. 

“Welcome, my friends.” Isaura greets them with a tight smile and a soft-spoken voice, inflected slightly by her accent.

“We apologise for the delay. _Someone_ ,” Tina eyes Newt, “wanted to stop to admire the wildlife.”

Newt shrugs shamelessly. Isaura doesn’t seem to mind as she responds with “I understand the... how you say? Compulsion?” She moves aside as the door open and gestures them to follow as she continues. “Our school is renowned for its excellency in Magizoology. We prioritise the knowledge of all living creatures to help nurture a student’s respect for the world and life around them.” Tina can tell Newt was fit to bursting with admiration for the school’s primacy. She could imagine him seriously considering choosing South America as the location of schooling for any future child of theirs, irrespective of his great respect for Hogwarts and Dumbledore.

 _Whoa! Slow down, Tina_. She urges herself, surprised by the image of herself and Newt with a nervous preteen conjured at the forefront of her mind.

She seems to have fallen behind because the voices of Newt and the headmistress talking animatedly about using his book as a study guide were slowly drifting away.

She catches up to them just as they come upon a large circular mosaic on the wall.

“Pipoca,” utters Isaura at the intricate pattern of multicoloured tiles that seemed to rearrange themselves. The wall suddenly shook, the circle emerging and separating from the stone around it. Newt and Tina step back as it began to roll to one side, revealing a hole in the wall and a set of stairs leading downward.

“Meu escritório,” she explains. “My office.” And they follow her down deeper into the temple.

The stairwell was dark save for the row of torches burning along both sides of the passageway. Tina feels her lungs constrict with how narrow the tunnel was becoming the further they delved.

Newt grabs her hand, squeezing gently so that, even though it was difficult to see him, she could still feel him and the assurance that she is okay. “I’ve got you,” she can hear him whisper.

Noticing Tina’s discomfort, Isaura says “I am sorry for the long walk. It’s just that I don’t allow apparition inside my school.”

“It’s the same for Hogwarts.”

“Ilvermorny, too.”

All three wonder which establishment had started this tradition. Reading up on the school during one of their train journeys, they discovered that Castleobruxo, like Hogwarts, appeared as no more than an ancient ruin to muggles. If that didn’t repel them, the spirit creatures tasked with protecting the school and its students, who lurked low in the hedgerows and high in canopies would surely drive them off screaming. 

Tina finds it difficult to imagine anyone could navigate the dense, suffocating jungle well enough to even find the temple. It was well protected which would be a convincing factor in her agreeing to send an aforementioned child there. 

Eventually, a source of light ahead allows Tina to relax some more, but she doesn’t let go of Newt’s hand.

“Professor Xavier, might I ask why there are so few older students?” Inquires Newt once they’ve settled into her underground office. It was true, they’d seen very few taller, more mature looking students during the small tour.

A shadow clouds over Isaura’s face and she looks down at her hands. “Grindelwald is very, what is the word? Persuasive. He exploits the persecution of our kind by non-wizards to lure young people to his side.” she opens a file in front of her. “It is sad but there is still a lot of hatred for what is ... different here in Brazil.” 

The couple on the opposite side of her desk nod, understanding completely. They wonder whether students at their respective Alma maters would drift from the light with that same enticing slogan for freedom and a false image of peace. 

The conversation turns swiftly to the order of business which could apparently be found in the file Isaura was now studying, keen to move on. “The British And American ministries wrote to tell me that you will be needing myself to liaise with you while you are undercover?”

Tina nods. “We’ll need to have someone close by to contact should Grindelwald plan to make a move.”

“It will have to be a discreet method of communication though,” Newt points out, wanting to feel useful for once. “We’ll undoubtedly be searched upon arrival and I doubt any owls we send out won’t be checked.”

Isaura nods, “It seems your Mr. Graves has a suggestion for just that, Mr. Scamander.”

Tina smiles admirably. “I’m not surprised.”

Newt rolls his eyes. He has no reason to be jealous - Tina is _his_ wife, not Graves’s - but he can’t quite be rid of that tug in his gut whenever she praised her boss. He can already see her telling him off for being possessive but he’s fairly certain she too would feel the same way.

“He proposes we enchant a single personal item, one that you wear at all times?” her English improving as she read the instructions word for word.

Tina’s hand reaches for the locket hanging against her breast bone. Isaura follows the movement and nods. It would be suitable for a prompt form of contact.

The older witch rifles through the papers and holds up a sealed envelope. "I understand your sister Queenie has written to you. We received an owl only this morning.” This is surprising to both Newt and Tina as they had not expected Queenie to be so reckless as they neared Rio. She must have sent it at great risk to herself.

Isaura hands Tina the letter which she takes with trembling hands. She reads to whom it was addressed and gasps at the use of her nickname at the top of the page. Newt is up and out of his chair at once, hovering behind her, one hand on her shoulder and the other, reaching for hers. He would be her anchor.

_My dear Teenie,_

_I don’t have long and I’m sorry this is the first you hear from me, but an explanation will have to wait until we’re together again._

_Abernathy received an owl from Pomona Ambrosio who claims she met with you and your husband. She is certain you can be trusted. Well done!_

_Grindelwald has seen the letter and trusts Abernathy’s judgement. He is curious to receive you. But be careful, sister, he is suspicious, especially of Newt. Please be prepared to provide proof of your allegiance – he will demand it before he accepts you._

_Once the papers report you two arriving in Rio, he’ll send someone to collect you._

_Until then,_

_All my love,_

_Queenie._

Tina exhales heavily as the parchment falls from her hands. Proof of their loyalty was still stinging faintly around their wrists. Yes, they were prepared to meet Grindelwald. But Tina isn’t so sure she’s ready to see her sister.

She feels Newt’s thumb caress her jaw as she brings their joined hands to her neck. The tension momentarily evaporating.

Once all other arrangements had been made and the plan for any necessary action was repeated thrice over, they were shown to a room in which they’d stay for the night before heading to Rio the next morning.

It was cramped with a low ceiling but they didn’t need much as they planned on sleeping in the case anyway.

“A word to the wise: don’t go wandering outside the castle after dark,” the headmistress warns, turning back into the room with one hand on the doorknob. “Night belongs to the Caipora and they’ll give outsiders more trouble than you can imagine.” There was an amused hint to her words, but Tina recognises caution when she hears it.

Newt, however, has perked up with a dangerous curiosity and excitement glistening in his eyes. 

“Don’t even think about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all really came through for me last chapter! I’m so thankful to all those who have commented, but also to the kudos, so far. Our favourite couple enter the dangerzone in the upcoming chapters!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: smut in the latter portion of this chapter.

Rio de Janeiro in early October was not at all what Newt and Tina had been expecting. Coming from two of the world’s most populated cities themselves, they didn’t imagine they could feel overwhelmed with the density of a crowd. As it was, they seemed to swarm in their thousands in the streets that were, unlike those in New York and London, wide enough to accommodate the masses. Somehow it still felt suffocating and cramped.  
  
If they’d visited eight months earlier, perhaps they’d have been able to enjoy the festivities that Carnival had to offer. As luck would have it, they’d arrived amidst a muggle conflict in which the public were staging a coup against the current governing body.  
  
Newt cares little for politics in the magical world due to the inherent hypocrisy that too often accompanies it. He doubts very much the politicians of the muggle world are any different. He doesn’t have to wonder if Tina was of the same opinion as he caught a glimpse of her disgruntled expression as they meandered their way through the crowd. Though he suspects the blistering heat had something to do with her low spirits.  
  
They’d tried to dress appropriately to help their bodies cope with the Brazilian humidity. Tina was wearing a loose white blouse with no sleeves and beige coloured breaches that were held up by brown suspenders. She’d unbuttoned a few extra buttons on her shirt as the thin material proved to be too thick after all. Newt’s eyes are appreciative of the view of the deep V-neck that bared some tan skin to the air. Tina too enjoyed the definition of Newt’s biceps and chest muscles through the slightly damp shirt. He’d forgone his heavy coat and restrictive bow tie in favour of rolling up his sleeves and leaving a few buttons open as well. His fairer, more sensitive skin wasn’t reacting to the sun quite as well as Tina’s.  
  
This and the tense, disenchanted mood of the crowd around them was enough to make them forget they are magical and could readily use a simple cooling charm. As such, they kick themselves upon arriving at the hotel after an hour of navigating the gathering of stubborn bodies.  
  
“It’s a good way to be spotted though,” Newt concedes, trying to lighten the mood as Tina fans herself with her wand vigorously. She nods. The sooner the papers announced their arrival, the sooner Grindelwald would send for them as Queenie promised in her letter.  
  
“It’s also ideal for him,” she adds, slamming her wand down onto the table and starts unbuttoning the rest of her blouse. The cooling charm had done little to tackle the heat and her clothes were now sticking to her.  
  
Newt watches her and decides it’s a good idea and flicks his wand to all but lift his shirt all the way off. “What do you mean?” He doesn’t miss how Tina’s eyebrows lift in appreciation.  
  
She leaves her shirt on but let’s it hang open to reveal her brassiere and toned stomach. “The entire city filled with preoccupied and angry no-majs? It’s perfect conditions for Grindelwald to go about his business undetected.”  
  
The implications make Newt nervous. He remembers the things he had to do whilst undercover the first time around. The lies he told. The torture he witnessed. The innocents he’d come close to killing. The memories of it occasionally return to him in the form of nightmares that wake him in a fit of cold sweats. He wouldn’t admit it to Tina but the thought of her being forced to do anything akin to what plagued his slumber, makes him want to abandon their mission altogether and run away.  
  
But neither him nor Tina are cowards. They’ll fulfil what’s been charged to them and they’ll do it better for having each other’s backs.  
  
He looks over at her, seated by the small table, conjuring spheres of ice into the water she’d just poured for herself. Another glass starts filling in mid-air for him just as he begun craving rehydration.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
They drink in silence, regaining some sense lost in the heat. Newt rolls the ice on his reddened arms, cooling the burn whilst Tina just had to roll it across her neck and chest. The droplets of water trickling down her perfect skin over her throat, clavicle, between her breasts and past her navel. Newt’s eyes watch it slide lower, wishing his tongue could follow.  
  
His thought broke off. The roar and stomping sounds of the crowd below were drifting in through the open window. It was deafening and there was no silencing spell powerful enough to quieten the entire muggle population of Rio. What was supposed to be a few hours of blissful relaxation, the calm before the storm that awaits them with Grindelwald’s summons, didn’t look like it was going to be happening after all. A refreshing nap was simply out of the question.  
  
“Case?” Newt offers across the table to Tina.  
  
“Case,” she agrees instantly. There would be little opportunity to relax down there with the demanding creatures but at least it is temperature controlled.  
  
Standing before it, Newt offers Tina his hand as she steps inside. He’s close enough now to see the two day old wound on her upper arm that had been the result of a threatened Hippogriff who thought her baby preferred Tina as its mother.  
  
Had it been him who was on the receiving end of the sharp, overlarge talons, he doubts he’d have tended to it until he felt himself careen out of consciousness.  
  
But with Tina there had been so much blood. The initial shock and fear spilled out into anger. Not at the creature, but at himself for not having protected Tina better. He felt much the same as he’d done for the long seven months she’d been absent from his life. Consumed nightly, not by her heated embrace, but by his own regret and failure. The steady stream of blood trickling down her arm, soaking the entire left side of her shirt transported him back to that night at the ministry.  
  
His case had been in her office, hidden from view by a disillusionment charm when Grindelwald had burst in, demanding to be shown the traitor. Tina held her own for the most part, jinxing and stunning several of his followers unconscious. One had landed on top of Newt’s case in the commotion and as such, he’d been locked within when Grindelwald pointed his wand and malice upon Tina.  
  
He struggled against the weight of the man as he heard her screams and strangled cries. It was a desperate “Ascendio” and a breaking of the case’s hinges that plunged him upwards and onto the floor, pooled with blood. He’d waded through it on his hands and knees towards her. She lost consciousness quickly and he was left pleading for her and their child’s life. If Theseus hadn’t sent a Patronus to his Aurors, Newt knows the next thing he would’ve seen was a flash of green light and then perpetual blackness.  
  
As soon as they were freed, Newt had disapparated straight to St. Mungo’s with Tina who’d awoken screaming in agony and clutching her belly. In hindsight, and given the accident two nights ago, Newt realises the apparation had caused her more pain. He’d done the same to get away from the irate Hippogriff and it only made her bleed faster.  
  
“You need to stop beating yourself up about that.” Tina’s voice brought him back to reality. “It’s only a graze.”  
  
It was not, in fact, a graze but rather three crooked gashes that would’ve required stitches were it not for the wonders of magic and dittany.  
  
“I ought to change your dressings. We don’t want it getting infected,” he suggests, following her down into the case. Dougal is already in her arms when he turns from the ladder, inspecting the wound himself.  
  
“Don’t you start,” Tina warns the Demiguise as she reaches for the handle on the door.  
  
“Stop!”  
  
She turns to look at Newt, surprised by the sudden outburst.  
  
“So sorry. I just...” He moves past her. “I think it’s best that I go out first.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
His hands fidget at his trouser pockets and his eyes fall back to the cuts on her arm.  
  
Tina sighs. “Okay. Go ahead.” He could tell by her tone that she was annoyed by his overprotectiveness, but he didn’t care. He refused to watch her bleed again.  
  
As expected, the female Hippogriff squawked at the sight of Tina in the hut, flapping her wings wide in an effort to intimidate her rival.  
  
Newt was able to subdue her quickly with the distraction of a dead ferret, but Tina elected to stay back anyway, settling on the steps in front of the shed with Dougal in her lap. The baby Hippogriff seemed offended that Tina was devoting her attention to the hairy white beast instead of her magnificent feathered self. Customary Hippogriff pride having taken a hit, she galloped back to her parents.  
  
In spite of her initial grievance with Newt’s mollycoddling, she let herself enjoy the sight of him shirtless, pushing the heavy-loaded wheelbarrow around the uneven floor. The artificial moonlight bathed his skin in a curiously warm light as he stands staring out into the vast, exotic corner in which the Zouwu lives. The enormous creature was sleeping atop one of the larger boulders in the distance, her tail curled around herself. Tina could hear Newt mumbling under his breath as he surveyed the terrain around the beast, most probably deliberating what extensions to make next. Tina always teased him for never being satisfied with the layout of the habitats, adding small changes here and there nearly every time he stopped inside it.  
  
Similarly, she feels in a particularly playful mood now. “You know, this old hut could do with some remodelling for once.” It was, after all, the only thing he hadn’t changed in the four years she’d known him.  
  
Newt looks back at her, leering at him from the stairs. “What on earth for?”  
  
“It’s a little cramped, don’t you think? I mean, look at this...” She stands up and enters the hut, stretching her long arms out to touch both walls, her fingers could almost reach the wood. “Not much room for… anything,” she stresses the last word, an emphasis that implied she was willing and eager to test that theory. And although her demonstration was to prove a point, she is also strategic in how much skin she was showing him.  
  
It works.  
  
He approaches slowly at first, prowling towards her. She doesn’t move an inch when he steps into the hut to stand before her, only a thin layer of air separating their bodies. “Not much,” he agrees, cocking his head to the side, revealing the rare confidence she’d yearned for when the showers got too lonely and her fingers, obsolete. His hands reach out instantly, grabbing her hips and pulling them towards his own. “But enough.”  
  
Just as Tina opens her mouth to speak, he silenced her with his own, kissing her words away.  
  
She stumbles backwards with the sudden force of Newt’s body against her own. Before her brain is able to engage with this new development, her lips begin to return the kiss - tentatively at first, building gradually to rival the passion with which his hands plundered her body.  
  
Newt yields to her, letting her have her pleasures and making them his own. It felt to Tina that he been waiting each day since their last nightly excursion to be able to kiss her again, and to kiss her this way. She had waited just as long to be kissed by him, to know such love she’d previously thought lost to her.  
  
They stumble back against the ladder at the far end of the shed, where everything had slowed down and gone soft; his lips, her lips, her heart. All were aflutter in an instant.  
  
With his hands on her ribs, Tina jumps up and settles onto the conveniently placed ledge, opening her legs to cradle him between, locking him there by her ankles. He pushes her blouse the rest of the way off and his mouth moves to devour the flesh of her neck and chest. A deep, throaty moan urges him to nibble slightly on her collarbone and his fingers to press against the bumps at the indent of her spine.  
  
In response, Tina arches into him, her head lolling back with her eyes closed and her nails digging into his scalp and shoulder. All at once and quite as suddenly, passion had replaced the caution of the past two weeks. The decision had been made far beyond the point of turning back, his hands were pulling away the fabric of her bra and replacing it with his tongue before they could think better of it.  
  
“Newt,” she rasps breathlessly, her voice failing her. She pulls at his hair and rejoins their mouths, tongue seeking its partner.  
  
In his distraction, Tina’s hands slip down and over his torso, feeling around for his belt buckle. She fumbles with it for a time, tickling the skin of his abdomen, eliciting a low growl from his throat. The bulge that pressed against her hand was not surprising but gratifying all the same and as she strokes the length of it through the uncomfortably stretched material, he bites her bottom lip, hissing against her mouth.  
  
He grabs her hand. Their lips disconnect and their eyes meet. Hers, with a question. His, an answer.  
  
“I want to take care of you.”  
  
Tina’s eyes are fixed on Newt’s, considering the depth of the gaze. Mouth slightly ajar in surprise. When she purses her lips, Newt prepares to be dismissed.  
  
Instead, a kiss draws him back in.  
  
It’s deeper with an added sense of urgency and desire the tentative first had lacked.  
  
Eventually, their mouths finally break apart and the fairer haired of the two drops to his knees, descending Tina’s lithe body, seeking her core. Newt’s mouth tastes the skin of her breast, her belly and hipbone. His hands drop lower still to her thighs, stroking, opening, teasing until he hooks his fingers into the belt loops of her trousers and yanks them off with the underwear beneath.  
  
Newt doesn’t dare steal one last glance up at Tina’s face but his hand splays against her stomach while the other holds her by the hip. His mouth starts on the opposite side, his lips pursing softly, faint whispers against Tina’s skin, urging barely audible gasps from above which compel him to drift lower, deeper.  
  
Tina doesn’t seem to know what to do with her own hands until Newt suddenly grabs one of her legs and sets it over his shoulder, giving him better access. Tina’s hands settle rigidly against the chest of drawers behind her, palms crushed to the cold mahogany, a contrast to the heat growing between her legs.  
  
Newt’s lips have moved to the inner thigh he holds against his neck. They form not into kisses but leave a wet trail with his tongue, edging inwards. It’s all Tina’s body is crying out for and it’s more than she can bear. She arches her back away from the wall, pushing her groin towards Newt, demanding satisfaction.  
  
“Are you certain?” He asks, peering up at the brunette.  
  
“Yes. Damn it,” Tina hisses with even less hesitation than Newt’s decision to marry her, because she has scarcely room to move away, and it leaves her in this position; pinned and undone; exposed and honest, bared to Newt’s scrutiny and just simply grateful that he wants her. 

He too is grateful that she pined for his touch just as much as he’d missed touching her. How could he resist, was he able? A world without her was a world without warmth, without the guiding light of the sun, the moon and the stars. Such was what she meant to him, and furthermore the world. Newt imagined it, a world without his Tina was a world that in afterthought, seemed much like darkness, void of the reasons he had now for living. Having her in his arms now reminds him of just how lucky but undeserving he truly is.  
  
Newt’s hot breath sends jolts up Tina’s spine, coiling at the nape of her neck until finally and at last, she feels tongue against tender flesh. Lapping, nuzzling, humming, sucking and nipping to devour the very last of the agonies from within. He is taking the very best care of her.  
  
When Newt finally opens his eyes, mouth still attached to Tina’s centre, he sees flashes of light through the cracks in the case’s lid.

Someone was in their room.

By the sudden absence of heady breaths and impatient squirming, Newt knows Tina had noticed as well.

Her hand summons her wand and waves it down the length of her body, transfiguring some clothes and dignity onto her naked form.

She and Newt share a look. She nods and moves aside, letting him go up first.

At the top of the ladder, he pushes on the lid just enough so that a sliver of the room could be seen. The pacing sole of a poorly waxed shoe confirms they are not alone.

It's Abernathy, the defected MACUSA employee who aided in Grindelwald’s initial escape and his rally in the underground amphitheatre at Père Lachaise.

Newt pushes the case all the way open and steps out. "Can I help you?"  
  
The man jumps slightly at the sight of him.

“Scamander,” Abernathy nods at the taller man though no ounce of respect is spared in the gesture. “Ah, Goldstein.” Tina, absent all indication of their activities moments ago, had appeared from behind Newt. “Though, I hear it's Mrs Scamander now.”

Tina eyes him gingerly, holding her tongue. He was still the snivelling, imperious runt of a man she’d briefly been supervised by. She could not afford for any hint of scorn she was feeling to bleed out onto her features. They were supposed to be on his side now. 

He seems to consider them for a moment, determining if they posed a threat or if indeed Pomona had be right about them. Neither their expressions nor their demeanour divulged much of anything, he seems to decide as he straightens his back, clearing his throat.

“Mr Grindelwald requests that you join him for dinner,” Abernathy announces with an awful finality. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short, slightly smutty chapter before the next few lengthier and heavier ones. Bit of a filler but I hope it was an enjoyable read nonetheless. As always, kudos and comment!
> 
> follow me on twitter: bartagnanz


	11. Chapter 11

Ash was swirling overhead in the cloudless evening sky, emanating from the gargantuan hay statue of the muggle President that blazed in the centre of the city. The flames could be seen from the mountainside favela that Newt and Tina had been escorted to by their reluctant guide Abernathy. He must think he’s above such tasks, the couple agreed when they’d stopped in front of a cluster of derelict houses that left little room for a discreet disapparation point. He huffed and groaned the entire journey.

Abernathy pulls out his wand and a small piece of torn parchment. He reads the contents before setting it alight.

Just as they were beginning to think he had led them to be ambushed, the ground beneath them begun to shake and the air became heavy with something other than humidity. Several of the shacks appeared to be razing themselves into the hillside as their foundations quaked beneath them. The corrugated roofs bounced up and down and the makeshift windows fluttered in the non-existent breeze. They could just make out residents within who, to their confusion, hadn’t seemed to notice the earth shifting around them.

Newt and Tina step back, maintaining a cautionary distance from whatever might appear between the two cubic houses that were now separating, pushing against the others to make room. The sound of bricks piling on top of one another merges with the heavy crack of stone. This too goes unnoticed by the muggles surrounding them.

Finally, the noise of shifting ceases and an overlarge white door with black ornate inlay greets them from its position in the rock face. Without turning to acknowledge them, Abernathy approaches the door but remarks “the Fidelius charm. Genius, right?”

The couple behind him share a look that communicates apprehension, but they follow anyway, hand in hand.

Upon closer inspection of the door, Tina notes the sigil of what Grindelwald affectionately called the Alliance. It comprised of the famed elder wand which stood betwixt two letter G’s back to back, framing the symbol that represented the Deathly Hallows. Newt remembers it all too well from his extended stay in Nurmengard Castle a year ago. It had been engraved on various objects throughout the Austrian stronghold, never once could Newt forget where he was. The subtle though stringent reminder barked at him whenever he would pass.

Grindelwald’s need to flee Europe upon Newt’s cover being blown and his location compromised, was an abrupt one. His new lair in Rio was not without the customary homely touches, as the sigil appeared again and again on the torch brackets that decorated the corridor beyond the entrance at intervals.

They were inside the mountain now. A deep cavernous hole in the earth that cocooned the dark magic within. An apt base of operations, the Auror in Tina mused as she grudgingly admired the ingenuity in it. The ministries of the world would be hard pressed to uncover a location protected by a Secret Keeper. Not even she and Newt could divulge the coordinates in their next check in with Isaura. Newt had told her of a house owned by a pure-blooded family in London that was protected by the same complex enchantment. No such residence had been found because anyone who’d visited, of which included Theseus’s would be father-in-law, was unable to share the secret themselves.

“A secret protected by the Fidelius Charm can only be shared by the primary Secret Keeper,” Newt explained to her one evening. “The secondary keepers are quite unable to do so.”

Tina supposes Grindelwald had charged himself as Secret Keeper after Newt’s treachery.

He is learning.

It makes her stomach twist uncomfortably with nerves. Those who knew her called her the quintessentially prideful woman, but she is not too proud to admit that she was frightened for what awaited them farther into the dark chasm of the mountain. Grindelwald’s alleged trust in Pomona Ambrosia’s judgement by proxy of Abernathy was all well and good, but it didn’t instil a confidence in her enough to dispel the concerns she had regarding Newt’s safety.

Similarly, and Tina hates herself for thinking it, she couldn’t trust Queenie any better. Although she was not in the habit of doubting the effects of Veritaserum, she suffered no delusions that there were no ways to counteract it. No potion that could dull the effects enough to bend the truth. No charm that would evaporate the liquid prior to consumption. Yes, it was possible Queenie had found a loophole. The question is, why and to what end? There was no guarantee that Queenie had told the truth and Grindelwald was willing to welcome them. So far there was only reason to doubt - she’d been fooled by her sister before, and to her own detriment.

Before she could dig herself deeper into a pit of fear and unease, a series of screams echo down the long corridor towards them. Abernathy does not acknowledge it, indicating that this was a common occurrence. Tina looks to Newt whose face doesn’t appear surprised but rather regretful.  _Why didn’t you warn her, you idiot!_ He reprimands himself upon meeting her horrified expression.

They say nothing as the screaming continues until suddenly and all at once, its silenced by a flash of green light beaming out of the cracks in a door they’d just passed.

Newt tightens his grasp on Tina’s hand, pulling her closer to his side. A gesture that says, “I’ve got you.”

Tina squeezes back.

The corridor curves to the right and out of her peripheral vision, Tina catches someone dragging a large heap from the door the screams had escaped. She tenses slightly, feeling Newt turn his head to look. Not wanting him to see what she had seen, she pulls on their conjoined hands and speeds up slightly, turning the corner on Abernathy’s heels. He is considerably shorter than both Newt and Tina and so it was difficult not to step on his overlong robes.

The abrupt stop he comes to next almost has them colliding into him. He flashes them a miffed sneer and tells them to “wait here” before he disappears into a dimly lit room.

They turn to one another, eyes searching, pleading, loving.

“We can do this,” one of them decides.

The other nods. “We can do this.”

There was no other option.

Tina remembers her training, taking note of all the exits and hiding spots. She could hear Graves’s voice in her mind, drilling these habits into her during her first year at MACUSA. There was a very small number of escape routes, owing to the fact they were inside a mountain fortress. The only escape would be the way they’d entered. The odds were stacked against them should Grindelwald deem them unwelcome.

They adjust their demeanour and the way they carry themselves much like they’d done before meeting with Pomona in her New Orleans Apothecary. While that had been a pivotal performance, this was to be the true test of their subterfuge. They might fail to convince Grindelwald and live only long enough to become that lifeless corpse they could hear being dragged in the opposite direction.

Tina leans into Newt, their foreheads supporting each other, eyes closed, sharing the strength they needed to surmount the obstacle that waits in the next room.

Despite the thickness of the stone, they could hear Abernathy speak.

“Sir,” there’s a swish of robes and soft but steady footsteps. “Your guests have arrived.”

Then they hear it. The low, soft-spoken distinctive voice that had nurtured killers and razed cities to ruin. “Ah! Marvellous.” It’s intimidating in a way that only those who were familiar with the man could know. To others it may seem reassuring, comforting even. It made him all the more dangerous.

There was another pair of footsteps, with heels and steps that were a great deal more purposeful than the last. A woman, Tina notes. Could it be Queenie?

Somehow the anxiety Tina felt at hearing Grindelwald speak was eclipsed by the fact she would see her sister very soon. She hadn’t so much as set eyes on her since she’d lay bleeding on the floor, her vision blurry and her heart broken.

“Well? Show them in!” Griped the feminine voice that was decidedly not Queenie Goldstein given the French accent etched into the words.

The door swings open and they release their hold on each other. “Welcome, my friends,” Grindelwald greets, his arms outstretched, beckoning their approach.

The room was vast but filled sparsely with only an unnecessarily long dining table that didn’t quite engulf the size of its surroundings. The only source of light flickered above in a pillar chandelier that hovered below the high ceiling, the flames too dull to chase away the shadows at each corner. So far, the lair is filled with too much darkness, and too little of anything else. It would remind Newt of his school years if it were not for that as well as the bloody stains on the floor by the fireplace, cold with disuse.

Had it been left there intentionally? He worries. It was not a good sign.

“Nice to see your own face again, Newton.” Grindelwald nods towards him when he enters the room behind Tina. Like before, he decides silence suited him best in this situation. His brain and mouth were linked by several faulty connections he didn’t trust enough to use.

Grindelwald makes his way over to them and takes Tina’s hand. “Porpentina,” he brings it to his lips and kisses her knuckles in a perverse attempt at being chivalrous, though his mismatched coloured eyes peer up at Newt who stood close at her back. “Charming.” When his eyes fall, they widen a fraction at the now pearl-toned scars weaving around her wrist. Tina feels his hold on her hand tighten, pulling her forwards abruptly as his other hand wretches away her sleeve. She feels the light touch of his fingers against her forearm and notes his stare sought out Newt’s. There he found its twin. “Curious.”

Newt prays he isn’t glaring because the rage was flaring inside him from how the other man had touched Tina. She, however, hadn’t blinked. She remained poised and as calm as ever. “In time, Mr. Grindelwald,” she answers his unspoken question with a curt smile. She is playing a dangerous game, but Newt trusts her judgement.

It seems to have worked in their favour because Grindelwald nods politely and waves his hand over the table, three chairs sliding out from under it. “Please, join me.”

He naturally takes a seat at the head of the table, leaving the rest free. Newt follows Tina to the left side, about to sit down beside her when the French woman bounds toward them.

“Not next to each other!” Rosier scolds, gesturing to the opposite side of the table.

Chuckles erupt from Grindelwald who seemed to find the sudden outburst amusing. “You must forgive Vinda,” he manages between jolts of laughter. “She’s a stickler for etiquette.”

She shoos Newt over to the other side, directly across from Tina, though he’d prefer to be within touching distance of her. “Without it, I believe we no better than the filth outside these walls.” Her words tug both Tina and Newt back to the reality of what they are dealing with. Cruel witches and wizards who would abuse their power and treat muggles as inferior beings, stomping out their existence as though they are no more significant than an insect. Had it been a no-maj from whom they’d heard the screams?

It wasn’t news to them, but being here, hearing it, feeling the wicked infestation within the walls was a different thing altogether. And now they must convince the Alliance that they too would sooner see muggles brought to heel and the wizarding community on top than continue to skulk in the shadows, fearful of persecution.

They remind themselves, over the first glass of alcohol, their sacrifice now measured short in comparison to the promise of a world without the ever-looming threat of a dark wizard and his murderous, hateful acolytes. A world in which Queenie and Credence were safe. Of course, they’d be lying if they claimed revenge for the loss of their child didn’t play a part in it. It made Tina’s stomach churn, allowing him to take her hand when she wanted nothing more than to watch him bleed to death beneath the tip of her wand. Just as he’d done many months prior.

“Quite right,” agreed Grindelwald in response to Vinda’s assertion. “Leave us.” Rosier and Abernathy both stomp out of the room as though a couple of dismissed school children.

“I know what you’re thinking,” they turn their attention back to their host, hoping he didn’t. “But we must humour our friends every once and a while, no?”

They smile but say nothing. Newt is using all his strength not to fling himself over the table to make Grindelwald’s already pallid complexion even more lifeless. Admittedly, it wouldn’t be the smartest move. If Tina couldn’t reach her wand in time to help him, Grindelwald certainly would.

“You don’t mind if we have another guest, do you?” Their eyes follow the direction his hand is now pointing. Another door has appeared in the stone wall. It opens slowly to reveal the blonde curls and dreamy-eyed look that belongs to only one person Tina knows.

Queenie , she inhales at the sight of her baby sister, whose once bright eyes were now dull and empty, having lost all of the wonder Tina had envied her for. Any doubt she’d had mere moments ago about her sister’s credibility were now dismissed. Queenie is unhappy and the imploring nudge Tina felt in her mind says, “save me, sister.”

Other than this brief telepathic plea, Queenie makes no outward sign of acknowledging them. She too has a role to play, which she maintains as she settles behind Grindelwald with one hand on the back of his chair.

“A family reunion, how nice! Though, I understand you must harbour some resentment, Tina,” he muses, too calmly for someone talking about torture and betrayal. It was a test, a challenge to get a rise out of her. Fortunately for herself and Newt. they’d been expecting it. “May I call you Tina?”

She looks him dead in the eye, accepting his challenge. “It’s reserved solely for friends. Do you intend to be my friend, Mr Grindelwald?”

It’s fleeting and almost impossible to catch, but one of his white eyebrows twitches.

Game.

“I hope you can forgive me... Tina.”

Set.

“You see, I did not know you were with child at the time.”

She swallows hard, forcing the memory down, though she senses both Newt and Queenie tense. “Would that have stopped you?” It’s more rhetorical than anything else.

His lack of response indicates she had passed his test. “Touché.”

And match.

Although she could relax for now, she loathes the cavalier tone of his words. As though they were discussing a simple misunderstanding. As though her and Newt’s lives hadn’t been forever upended by the mistake she knows he meant to make. If one good thing could come out of this conversation, her determination to see their task through was stronger than it had been the day before.

“So!” He settles back in his chair, conjuring food onto the table. “How is married life? I heard Seraphina was good enough to officiate the union herself.”

“It was advised,” Newt states for the first time since entering the room. “Though it was difficult to have someone like her bind us.”

Queenie leans down to whisper something into Grindelwald’s ear. It was, after all, why she had been invited in the first place. To gage their intentions in person. It was as Dumbledore had predicted. Her constant and continued assurance would be Grindelwald’s guide towards accepting them.

Whatever she’d said seemed to satisfy him. “It is a rotten business,” he agrees. “The muggle protectors are all the same. Shameful to our kind.”

“In the end it didn’t matter who married us.”

“It’s always easier when your partner shares much the same beliefs as you.”

Grindelwald nods, though Tina could’ve sworn she saw a familiar hint of regret in his eyes, one she’d seen in Dumbledore’s. “Half the battle, I dare say,” he adds.

His eyes fall inevitably to the scars on their wrists. “The other half?”

Tina shrugs, rubbing her arm to give the impression the Unbreakable Vow was a given and not at all noteworthy. “Extra security.” The more willing they appear, the more convincing they’d be.

Queenie whispers something again.

He turns to Newt. “Do  you , Newton? You’ve been awfully quiet.”

Blessedly, the younger man had chosen that moment to take a particularly large gulp full of wine.

“No matter. You’ll have your opportunity to talk.” Grindelwald empties his glass. “Separately.”

He rises from his seat and when Tina moves to do the same, she finds herself rooted to the chair, unable to move. One panicked glance over at Newt tells her that he too is paralysed. They simultaneously reach for their wands but find them gone.

They look to their host who is holding them firmly in his hands. “Did you really think I would welcome you so easily? Has Percy taught you nothing?” The mention of Graves fuels Tina’s anger. He’d been tortured and imprisoned by Grindelwald for months and she’d been there to help him recover. She’d seen the damage this man - this monster - had inflicted upon her friend.

“Tell me, Tina. Does your husband know just how close you and dear Percy were for a time?” It’s a taunt, one meant to undo them further. She hopes it won’t work as she eyes Newt closely. “The things Tina could show you in a pensieve, Newt. You would not believe what they got up to during all those night shifts shared together with an endless flow of whisky.” He sounds ridiculous, Tina thinks, trying to create a rift between them like some school-age girl who lived for the drama of others. Still, she holds her tongue and Newt doesn’t react.

Grindelwald was leaning against the table, facing Tina until he turns his head towards Newt. “I wonder if she lets you touch her like that,” he concludes before getting up to leave, his beastly laughter following him out of the room.

...

Tina doesn’t get a chance to talk to her sister because when she’d turned to look back from Grindelwald, the blonde was gone.

She’d looked to Newt instead who was staring down at his hands, avoiding her gaze. She knows, against his better judgement, what Grindelwald said regarding herself and Graves was tormenting him. Likely imagining the worst, most intimate of encounters. She would have to answer for it later because the moment she opened her mouth to explain, Abernathy and Vinda returned to the room, pointing wands at their backs.

She was led out whilst Newt remained, casting her a furtive glance with alarm in his eyes. It wasn’t being separated that filled them with dread, they’d expected that too. It was the threat of never being reunited that scared them. Would their last moments together be filled with tension and the images of her with another man? Would she have the chance to dispel those thoughts from his mind? Would she be ready to?

Now, as Tina sits alone in an impossibly darker, more cramp room, she fears what was happening on Newt’s end. Twisting the ring on her finger, she prays he is all right.

“Hello again,” comes a voice from behind her. “Have you enjoyed your stay so far? You’ve been treated well?” Grindelwald asks, settling in the chair across from her, his hands clasped. It reminds her of the time she and Newt were interrogated by the then disguised Grindelwald in the vaults at MACUSA. He has much the same demeanour as he had then, beneath the visage of her friend. She remembers punishing herself for weeks to follow for not recognising the obscure, uncharacteristic mannerisms he’d displayed. Up until that point, he’d played the part well, even showing distress at sentencing her to death. Or had that been genuine? Did it hurt him to end magical life, irrespective of whom it belonged to?

She doesn’t dare to hope, least of all when she felt her legs fused to the chair, her spine aching from the pressure of being held down by some invisible force, her wand confiscated.

“Forgive me, Mr. Grindelwald, but is the small talk strictly necessary? Can’t you just ask what you wanna know?” She wants it over and done with as soon as possible and loathe she is to endure the empty niceties. She wants to get back to Newt. To her husband.

He considers her for a moment, sizing her up before leaning back in his chair, relaxing. She takes the moment to look around the room, all but one wall is solid stone, encasing them inside in a claustrophobic bubble with no hope of escape. The fourth wall shimmered slightly, vibrating just enough to appear in waves to the naked eye. Tina has seen it before, at MACUSA, in the death chamber. Behind the stone wall would be another room, hidden by the enchantment that flickered in front of her. She suspects Queenie is there, watching, listening. And she’ll tell Grindelwald just what she’d found inside her sister’s mind.

Yes, this was very much an interrogation and it was time to convince him.

“Very well,” he agrees finally with his white eye leering. “To the point then, Tina.”

Tina turns her gaze back to him, bracing herself. “You’re an Auror. A damned dedicated one come to that.” The irony is not lost on her, but she suppresses the smirk to maintain eye contact.

“I remember how devastated you were to be demoted.”

_Of course you would_ , Tina thinks. He had been there, watching it happen. In hindsight, she realises that the real Graves would’ve contested Picquery’s decision. Instead, he’d just stood there and let it happen. It ought to have been the first sign that something was amiss in the Major Investigations Department. Like a fool, she’d missed that too. Hopefully Grindelwald is worse at detecting liars than she is.

“Then you’ll also remember why I got demoted in the first place,” Tina points out. The time had come.

Grindelwald nods. “The Barebone woman.”

“So you understand,” she hopes, the lack of oxygen in the poor excuse of a cell was restricting her airways, gasping for this to end.

“I understand that you wanted to protect an abused youth. What’s significant about that?” His dismissive words makes Tina wish Credence could hear him, to snap him out of whatever manipulation he’d succumbed to, to help her, Newt and Queenie.

“Nothing at all.” Tina shrugs, leaning back in her chair, mimicking him, “But I couldn’t admit to having attacked her previously, without provocation, could I?” There was no way he could prove otherwise.

This seems to grab his attention. He sits straighter, arms folded on the table between them, closer. “You attacked her? Why?”

She recalls how she’d convinced Pomona. How she’d spoken and what she’d said that led her to trust them, to think that she too despised the Statute of Secrecy and the laws imposed upon all wizard kind to ensure the protection of the non-magical. She remembers fuelling her bitter, scornful words with the very real, very raw pain and anger she feels constantly toward the man before her. What he’d stolen from her, from Newt, from Theseus and so many others like them. Yes, she loathes Grindelwald and if she couldn’t give him his due, she would use the veracity of emotion he’d caused to bring him down from within. She would make all the suffering, the nights of screaming and the irreversible heartache count for something. She had to.

So, she puts on her darkest mask and arms herself with that painful fury. “Her relentless Puritan preaching got on my nerves. No-maj’s are not worth the air we breathe, I loathe sharing it with them.” The glare she sends his way is not discernible, but it does express rage. .“She was a waste of it. She and her pitchfork, noose-tight agenda.” She spits the words, teeth clenched, eyes flaring with contempt and hands balled into fists. “My ancestors did not flee Salem for my sister and I to hide in the dark.” The anger in her voice here scares her because she isn’t sure where it had come from and, worse still, if it was genuine.

“Why didn’t you join her?” He cocks his head to the side, intrigued.

Tina looks down at her wedding ring, glinting up at her in the low light. She thinks of Newt and the anger vanished instantly..

She remembers Dumbledore’s words in his office many weeks ago. Something that would put the conversation to rest.  _There is one thing Gellert understands better then anything else. He questions it seldom, if ever..._

_Love_.

“I understand.”

“I thought you might.”

They share a bittersweet smile and it’s in the sincerity of his that tells Tina she’s got him. Hook, line and sinker.

...

She is escorted to another room after her meeting with Grindelwald. It’s almost as big as the dining room they’d first seen, except instead of a table occupying the majority of the space, a large bed stood in its place. It’s not, however, the first thing she notices.

“Newt?” Tina calls out with a shameless desperation in her voice. Logically she knows that since she was taken for interrogation first, she’d be the one left waiting until his is over.

Feeling helpless, she slumps down on the bed and finds her wand placed on the mattress. It’s a good sign, she decides, but anxiety rises in her stomach because Newt’s isn’t next to it.

Their belongings, his case, had been brought to the room, placed neatly by the door. The creatures were past due their nightly rounds and it fell to her when Newt wasn’t around. They were practically her wards too. It would be a good distraction if nothing else. She steps inside the case with a practiced ease and enjoys the company of the Demiguise, Niffler and Zouwu but avoids the Hippogriff family. It was senseless to get herself fatally maimed just as she had successfully infiltrated the Alliance. She hopes beyond any hope she’s never had that Newt will too. That he’ll join her any moment and hold her, kiss her and finish what they’d started before Abernathy had interrupted.

Would he even want to? Would the thoughts of Graves touching her ruin any attraction he felt towards her? Would he resent her?

Each thought, she knows deep down, is not her husband. He is not capable of resentment. She is just trying to distract her mind with impossibilities she could fix because it is easier than brooding over the very likely possibility that Newt may not step into his case again. And there was quite simply nothing she could do about it, locked in the room by magical reinforcements and surrounded by dark witches and wizards who would see her die simply for the career she’d chosen.

If Newt was killed, could she do it alone? Would she care to?

Could he stop himself from attacking Grindelwald over what he’d said at the dinner about their baby? She knows she had to rein in every impulse screaming at her to torture him the way he’d tortured her, until the mountain was filled with blood. Could Newt do the same? Would he try?

Before she could answer any of these questions, she hears a noise above that sounded too heavy and staggering to be Newt’s. 

She is sitting on the boulders by the sleeping Zouwu, Dougal in her arms and the Niffler eyeing her wedding ring. Her and Dougal’s eyes fixed upon the opening to the shed as they hear the sounds approach.

A click and snap. The case was being opened.

A creak and series of thuds. Someone was entering the shed, climbing down the ladder.

Tina lets go of Dougal and the Zouwu wakes, alert, her tail curling around Tina who stands in front, her wand aloft.

The thuds turn to the stomps she’d heard above, only closer and closer still.

Her heart is racing and her hand, shaking until, all at once, everything stops, frozen.

The door swings open.

“Oh my god,” Tina gasps.


	12. Chapter 12

The door swings open.

“Oh my god,” Tina gasps.

The sight before her was a battered and bloodied tangle of already formed bruises and permanent scars. Her heart plummets to her stomach as Dougal rushes over to his side. “Newt!” She chokes, hastening over to her husband as he collapses on the stairs leading out of the hut. She sinks to her knees before him, but he kept his head down, staring into his upturned hands that were soaked in blood.

Tina felt him struggle to breathe as she reached out to touch him, hesitated then drew back, reached again. The wariness consumes her. “What happened?” She asks, her voice scarcely audible but expressing alarm, nonetheless.

Newt had never looked worse for wear. His nose was crooked, his left eye swollen, lip cracked and the clothing on his back was torn in several places, hanging heavy by his sides, weighed down by the blood seeping from the slashes across his skin.

“It wasn’t him,” he began, wincing as he spoke through the pain. “Not to worry, love.” It was supposed to be comforting, she could tell but he had an awful habit of dismissing the severity of his own ailments.

“Don’t,” Tina warns, and he finally looks up with a question. “Don’t do that. Just let me take care of you.” His shoulders sag, defeated and lenient. He knows better than to argue with her.

“How did your interrogation go?” Newt asks as Tina moves past him and begun raiding the numerous small cupboards and shelves. She ignores his question, grabbing a handful of ingredients and grinding them with a pestle in a stone mortar. “We’ve run low on Dittany extract. I have to prepare some more.” Busy hands made for a preoccupied mind and it is what she needs to get herself through the next few moments. The sight of Newt covered in his own blood was enough to cripple her. She could no more endure watching him suffer than he could when it had been her in his place.

Once the extract of Dittany was transferred to a phial of standard healing potion, she fills a pipette dropper with the mixture and kneels down behind Newt. He attempts to remove his shirt but a sharp pang drums along his spine and rib cage, inhibiting the movement of his arms. 

Tina grimaces and steadies her heart. _Pull yourself together, he needs you._ She waves her wand hand over his back and the ruined material of his waistcoat and shirt beneath are torn completely down the centre with a loud tear. “Sorry,” she whispers, though she isn’t sure whether it’s for destroying his clothing or the several large, elongated slits on his back. It looks as though he’d been flogged with a cat o’ nine tails. Each cut was wide and deep, and in some areas, she could see the solid surface of bone. They would require sutures were they unable to perform magic. It might’ve killed him had he been a muggle. It makes her sick to the stomach to imagine the pain he had been subjected to. And it’s only the feeling of pure, unadulterated anger that could eclipse it. She feels both, she was becoming both.

She stifles her emotions and sets to work on his back, squeezing droplets of the healing potion over his wounds, watching the skin knit back together as she chanted a healing incantation in her mind, waving her wand over the broken skin. The blood flows back up and into his body as if a waterfall in reverse, as the wounds close as much as the Dittany and her magic would allow.

“It was his man Nagel,” Newt explains in response to her stunned silence, his head turned slightly to look back at her. “When you left, he attacked me. Negan was his brother, you see.” Understanding dawns on Tina. Negan had been the man Newt killed years before, only to assume his identity for the year to follow.

“You must’ve been pretty convincing to fool his own brother,” she muses absentmindedly, continuing to work on his back.

Newt tries to shrug but the new tautness of his skin prohibits any such gesture. He supposes she is right though. Nagel showed no sign of suspicion until the end, when it was too late anyway. He wonders whether it was this same talent for lying that had convinced Grindelwald to trust him again not an hour ago, when he too had been taken to a secluded room to be interrogated. It seemed as though his paranoia was all for nought.

“He believed me, don’t worry,” he tells Tina, whom he could sense was wondering the same thing.

“What did you tell him?” She asks, moving around him to squat in front of his legs now, focusing on the damage done to his face. He can see she is trying to suppress any outward sign of shock, to assure him it wasn’t as bad as he felt. It’s a lie though, one he sees right through 

“Does it matter?”

Tina looks down and retreats into herself slightly, feeling dismissed, and Newt regrets his choice of words and the tone with which he voiced them instantly. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to apologise, to ease her worry and tell her everything was going according to plan. To let her send the first coded message to Castleobruxo that would allow them to proceed to the next phase of their mission. She needs that, he knows, to be in control.

Unfortunately for them both, he was feeling particularly ill at ease and no amount of physical discomfort from the beating could distract his wandering thoughts from finding their way to the images conjured by Grindelwald’s venomous tongue.

He wants to ask her, but he fears the truth.

Had Grindelwald been speaking it? Was there merit to his taunts?

Had Tina been intimate with Graves? Was there more to it than sex?

It was stupid, to get worked up over this. It was just another example of him projecting his insecurities into something that would inevitably hurt them both. It had happened before and he’d managed thus far to push it away with ease. He needs to do the same now. Though it’s easier said than done.

She’s cleaning the blood from his temple and lip with a tenderness that endears her to him when his eyes find her face. Her dark eyes swollen with concern avoid his. On any another day, he would’ve felt guilty and any grievances he had with her would evaporate at once. He doesn’t know whether it’s the frustration fuelled by the pain or the fear of being killed that made today different from the others, but the shame on her face did nothing but irritate him. 

“I’m all right, don’t fuss.” He snaps, pulling away from her touch.

He can tell it’s uncharacteristic of him by the shocked reaction she gives. “I need to fix your nose.”

“I can do it myself!” He pushes past her into the paddock, out of her reach. He points his wand at his noise and with an “Episkey,” it cracks back into place. The sharp snap makes his eyes water and it’s what he’ll say if they turn to tears.

Tina doesn’t reply. Instead she utters “Evanesco,” which vanishes the bloodied rags and the excess herbs from the floor of the shed.

Silence swallows the case. Newt watches her tidy, busying her hands, avoiding his gaze. All the while he considers her, weighs his options and decides what to say next. His head aches, bursting to the brim with unwanted flashes of her with another man; hands that were not his own. Back in New York, moments before they were married, he’d sensed something between Tina and Graves. A shared history filled with high stakes and some measure of a kindred feeling. However small it was, there was no denying that loud, conspicuous whisper of a memory. The memory of something once important enough to not forget.

It had meant something to her at one point, Newt deduces with an agony to rival the one in his beaten body. _Does is still?_

“Would you have told me?” His mouth asks before his nerves could catch up.

“I’m sorry?” She doesn’t turn to face him, simply keeps cleaning, distracting herself.

Newt steps forward toward the opening of the shed, his hands in his pockets. “About you and Graves.” He makes it sound casual as he transfigures a clean shirt for himself, fastening the buttons. The weight of the subject is too heavy to disguise, however, and she doesn’t miss it. 

“Newt,” Tina sighs, her back tense with the weight of it. She isn't ready to open that can of worms just yet, not whilst her heart is troubled by the very real, very present danger that had threatened his life. She knew, of course, she would have to answer for this at some point, but now was most certainly not the time. “Don’t start.”

He steps closer, now with feet pressed against the middle stair. It creaks beneath him, straining alongside his patience. “You don’t get to avoid this, Tina.” _I need to know._

The drawer she closed must have been particularly stubborn because the force of it being pushed back into the cabinet was enough to shake the entire unit. She’s angry and it’s clear on her face when she finally turns around to glare at him.

“I have a right to know,” claims Newt, his thumb twitching at his side, his head bowed slightly, face obscured by the screen of his hair. He was not normally one for confrontation, so this was new territory for him. He could feel his words waver and his throat clench. 

“Excuse me?” When he looks up completely, Tina has her hands on her hips and her jaw set. He knows it means he is in for it, but he couldn’t stop himself.

“I’m your husband,” he mutters. It has to count for something.

“Yes, my husband... not my keeper,” she asserted, rage visible in the furrow of her brow. “You do not own me, Newton Scamander.” 

“I just-”

“You just what? Think I owe you an explanation for things that happened in my past?” She demands, furious. She knows it was not helping the situation to avoid answering his initial question, but the way he had asked it infuriated her. How dare he. “I don’t demand to know everything about yours. I don’t claim any right over what you did or didn’t do.” It was true, he could not deny that. She’d once been consumed with jealousy over his relationship with Leta, but she never once imposed any fault upon him for having one. And she certainly never showed any resentment towards the other woman in the short exchange they shared that evening in Paris.

But something in him was too bitter to quell. The monster inside him could not be reasoned with. It made his vision blurry with specks of red and green, blinding him to some semblance of clarity and sense. The epitome of his stupidity is encapsulated in the careless words that follow.

“How am I to know it was before me? Maybe it was during the year I was gone... or the past seven months.”

Tina was about to rebut his accusation but closed her mouth completely, her arms falling limp at her sides. She understood his jealousy, even the frustrating compulsion to know. But this was too much. It feels a lot like the betrayal from months ago and she’s transported back to the night spent with the bathroom door separating them.

Newt notes the sudden silence and feels his body cave in on itself. His features darken as he realises the implication of what he’d just said.

“Do you really think so little of me, Newt?” Her voice is small, broken, heartless. It is gone. It breaks his to hear it.

“It isn’t like that...”

“No, it’s exactly like that!” She growls, the white of her eyes becoming bloodshot with tears. “You don’t trust me.” 

Newt opens his mouth to dispute it, but she continues. “What’s next? You doubt the baby was ever yours?”

She knows the answer before the question can register in his mind. She didn’t mean to imply he doubted her. She doesn’t doubt him. It was hurt, anger and the fear of them becoming lost in this admittedly stupid fight that gave voice to her sharp tongue.

“Never.”

“How am I to know, huh?” Like him, she has trouble reining in her emotions long enough to give way to reason. “Isn’t that what you’re saying?”

Newt shakes his head with an urgency. “No, Tina. Just listen!” He reaches for her hand as she pushes past him and out of the hut.

She snatches her arm out of his grasp as though it burned for him to touch her. It stings. “I’ve heard enough!” She tightens her grasp on her wand, the flex of the wrist muscles throbs around the infinity-shaped scars there. If he touches her again, she doesn’t trust herself not to stupefy him up and out of the case.

“Please, love-” he tries, interrupted.

Suddenly, there’s a delicate knock from above, silencing whatever profanity might’ve come next. 

“Teenie?” Sounds a voice Tina had missed hearing.


	13. Chapter 13

It is as good a distraction as any and although she’d been dreading this moment since before leaving London, Tina welcomes it now. 

Her legs are shaking under her, body fatigued to exhaustion from the day’s toil and the idea of a bath is tempting. It’s not enough to silence the abhorrence of having to fill the copper tub, however. If only she had the strength to conjure the steaming water that might soothe the sharp sting in her heart from her conversation with Newt. It was a bitter and frigid air between them. The idea of ignoring the voice above and staying locked inside the case with Newt was becoming less and less appealing. Scolding herself with bath water into unconsciousness seems a pleasant alternative.

Chest heaving, she eyes him across the small overgrown meadow with a tear-soaked stare. Burdened by their argument, he does not cry, but she has tears for them both. It’s overwhelming. “Excuse me,” she gasps, pushing past him and back into the shed. He moves aside easily enough, though it’s not without reaching out to grab her wrist.

It startles Tina but she stops nonetheless, ignoring the new tingling deep within the coils of the scars. _What?_ Her gaze asks.

Newt seems to stare a moment too long because he shakes his head instead of answering and releases her. “Never mind.” She catches him rub at his wrist, presumably having felt the same, strange sensation. Whatever it was, they’d address it later.

Queenie is waiting.

The anticipation and fear creep back slowly, the anxiety and regret that is synonymous with her sister crushes her heart with a heaviness that makes it difficult to climb up and out of the case. It almost eclipses the ache that had buried itself inside her from the fight with Newt. 

Almost. 

Stepping out of the case to be greeted with the customary high-heeled shoes and golden blonde finger-waves was a breath of fresh air compared to the stifling suffocation beneath her feet.

When Queenie turns, however, a new weight falls upon Tina. One she had never expected to carry. 

What was once a rosy, fair complexion, positively glowing with life had now greyed and withered just enough to age her beyond her years. She is still beautiful, of course, but her skin had lost all of its radiance and what now remains is a pallid, weary countenance. Her eyes, once bright and zealous, are shadowed with a dispassionate, listless gloom that could only have resulted from years in the dark.

A soul as bright as Queenie’s could not survive long there. 

Her older sister’s heart breaks all over again to see what remained of it.

Tina is suddenly overcome with guilt churning violently in her stomach, threatening to spill out in another fit of sobs. She swallows it as Queenie starts to approach, her arms wide and her lips lifting into a smile.

It falls when Tina retreats instinctively. Her arms follow, unsteady and defeated at her sides. “Hi,” she settles for. Her voice seems older too, matured by experience, hardened by trauma. What must she have seen in the last three years that made her so empty? Who took it out of her? Tina doesn’t have to ask because Queenie can hear her anyway, the presence in her mind is gentle between heartbeats. “I chose this. It’s my fault,” she concedes.

Certainly, she has no idea the depth of her older sister’s guilt because the statement, however half true, deepens the wound and heightens the pain. She shakes her head, _he manipulated you, it’s what he does._

Queenie responds with her eyes, full of regret and shame. Tina doesn’t know how to respond. Coping with feelings demanded skills she didn’t happen to possess, contrary to the younger witch beside her. Her ability was such that her whole being revolved around emotion and how those around her feel. Tina, with no such gift, was stunted in comparison. Her husband knew that best of all.

“Is Newt okay?” Queenie asks, as if on cue.

Tina shrugs, “he’ll be fine.” _But that’s up to you, idiot,_ she reminds herself reproachfully, the guilt she feels regarding her sister seeps into contrition concerning Newt. She should have just told him the truth about her past with Graves. No, he didn’t need to know, nor did he have the right to demand that she tell him, but it was clearly hurting him. Grindelwald’s goading had done the trick, but she wasn’t about to let him tear a rift between them. Not now, not when they needed each other the most. If she has to revisit memories that were better left forgotten to fix the mess she’d made, so be it.

She looks back up at Queenie who is staring down at the floor, her hands unable to decide whether they prefer to be clasped or separate. She is nervous, unsure of herself. It was very alien to her character; it didn’t suit her.

“I don’t know what to say,” she whispers, having sensed Tina staring at her, discomforted by the silence.

“Then why did you come?” It’s a simple enough question, though she can admit it sounds rather cold and harsh. Her intentions are quite the opposite and she hopes Queenie can hear them.

The hunch in her shoulders and the sniff that follows tells Tina she didn’t. “You’re right. I’m sorry, i’ll go.” She starts for the large black door, dwarfing the occupants of the room in a deliberately imposing manner, when Tina nudges her mind. _No!_

Queenie turns, her eyes wet and wide. Hopeful.

“Don’t go.” Tina doesn’t care how imploring it sounds. She felt no shame when it comes to Queenie, the one who saw her heart and mind so clearly and judged neither for the slights they make.

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness.” And without confirmation, both women knew to what she was referring. It was a night that even the most skilled in memory charms could not obliviate from either of their minds.

**_Eight months ago…_ **

It was one of the evenings the pile of paperwork was stacked too high on Tina’s desk to afford an early night in front of the fire with a Demiguise in her lap. It was likely just as well because although her back was aching and her morning sickness threatened to soil the reports in front of her, she dreaded going home these days.

Home was where Newt was and she didn’t want to see him. It was how much of the last month had gone since her announcement in the small hours of the morning. His reaction had been ingrained in her mind and it would replay each time she felt herself missing him, longing for his arms, fingers, mouth to relieve her discomfort.

And sometimes, he wasn’t even there. He was not yet a permanent fixture in her life because he could only stay for a few days to a week at a time before he had to go back to Grindelwald with another man’s face. The resentment she felt would always give way to stress and worry as soon as he’s swallowed by the emerald flames. Would it be the last time she saw him? Would they never get a chance to reconcile? Would their baby ever meet his father?

It was only the returned presence of her sister that was a great comfort to her during such times. “This stress is not good for the baby, Teen.” She would often remind her when she saw her sister unsettled and losing sleep. Her anchor was often gone for indefinite periods of time. It was what she needed to tether herself and her senses to the moment. What came next was a worry for then, not now. 

Tonight was a night in which she had both Newt and Queenie. The latter would be waiting at home and the former was hiding from any late stragglers at the ministry. His case lay tucked neatly into a corner of her office, charmed and hidden from view.

She’d told him to just go home and enjoy the dinner Queenie had no doubt slaved over.

He refused. Something about a mole in Auror department and just because she and his brother weren’t convinced didn’t mean it wasn’t true. He would remain there for her protection, welcome or otherwise.

She rolled her eyes and told him, “fine. Do what you want,” in the indifferent tone that hurt him each time but she couldn’t quite shake. 

He leaves the case open a smidge so as to hear anything that might alert him. But he doesn’t hear the click of heels on black tile a minute after midnight.

“Queenie? What are you doing here?” Tina asked, looking up from the report she was working on. It was very late. Her hand flew to her small but noticeable bump, feeling a significant amount of movement suddenly. This didn’t feel right. 

“I’m sorry. Tina,” Queenie began, and Tina noticed she wouldn’t look at her. “Leave now. You don’t have to get involved.”

 _What are you talking about?_ She couldn’t physically ask it, too winded from the somersaults the baby seemed to be doing inside her. This was unusual, too. Granted she’d only felt the first movements a couple weeks prior but never had he been quite so active than in the moment Queenie walked through the door.

“Please!” The blonde insisted in a quieter though more insistent voice. “Before it’s too late.” _Think of the baby!_

Too late? Too late for what?

This question was answered not by Queenie, but by the slow, measured footsteps approaching from the long corridor outside Tina’s office.

“What have you done?” She asked her sister with dark, wide eyes, staring across at her frightful blue ones.

Tina pushed up and away from her desk, wand aloft and pointed at the door. Her fast reflexes send a hex straight at the white-haired man to whom the footsteps belonged when he appears in the threshold. 

He is equally as quick and reflects the curse to the side of his head. It comes into contact with the distressed glass of the door, cracking around the E of her middle name.

“Lovely to see you too, Tina,” he grinned amusingly. His eyes falling to her mid rift as she retreated backwards, away from him and the half-dozen followers who made making their way into the office behind him. “I see you and dear Newt have been busy.”

“Newt is dead. Your man killed him!” She spat.

“Now, Tina,” He tuts. “You should be a better liar. Graves taught you better. Or am I to hear next that he fathered your child?” He knew too much about Graves and it made her sick and feverish with contempt, threatening both men who were so important to her. 

“Leave. Now.” She knew she was gravely outnumbered, and the pregnancy had hindered her significantly, but she stood firm in front of the case they couldn’t see all the same. The tip of her wand lit up, primed to stun. She might be angry with Newt, but she loved him and to love meant she didn’t have a choice. She would protect him no matter what.

Grindelwald sighed. “I don’t want to hurt you, Tina. But if needs must.” He nodded to one of his acolytes who smirked and darted across the room at her. He is fast, but not fast enough because Tina slid her desk across the floor into his legs with a wave of her hand whilst she pointed her wand at another approaching target. A red bolt collided with his chest and he flew back into the wall behind Queenie, the plaster crumbling against the force, blood following him as he slumped to the floor with a cracked skull.

Another two minions attempted an attack and they were both knocked unconscious by Tina. She is a damned good Auror but an even better witch. As she regained her breath, Grindelwald looked impressed, surveying the damage done to his men, scattered throughout the room at their feet. 

“One last chance, Tina. Where is Newt?”

She said nothing but her glare spoke volumes.

She heard Queenie’s voice inside her head. _Tina, please! Just tell him. He won’t hurt you or the baby if you do! Newt wouldn’t want you to protect him at the expense of your lives!_

If she’d told her anything else, she didn’t hear it, blocking her out, remembering the Occlumency lessons she’d taken in private as a teenager. She can’t bear to even look at her sister much less listen to her. She’d betrayed her.

Grindelwald sighed again, reaching into his jacket for his wand. “It didn’t have to go this way. But I understand.” Tina scoffed. “Oh, but I do, Tina,” he explained. “Love maims and twists us to do things we shouldn’t.” He gestured to her middle.

Tina’s hand shook at the implication of his words and before she can realise what she was doing, she felt the excruciating pain before she hears the word that caused it.

“Crucio...”

 ** _Present day…_**

“And I’m not ready to forgive you,” admits Tina. She couldn’t lie about that, least of all when the memory is flashing at the forefront of her mind. Unwillingly stored there, prone to brooding as she was.

Queenie looks down, sniffing again. Ashamed.

It hurts to see. Tina makes her decision and swallows past the lump in her throat as well as her own pride. “But I’ve missed you,” she states, approaching her sister. “Despite it all, I’ve missed my baby sister.”

It is true and their parents wouldn’t have wanted this for them. A ten-year-old Tina made a promise to them on their death bed that she would always keep her sister close. Unforeseen difficulties arose and she’d failed them once. Now, she is presented with the opportunity to make good on that promise and she is not about to let a past they couldn’t change stop her. Her baby is gone, but her sister is not. The sincerity in her eyes assured her of that.

“Oh Teenie!” Queenie sobs and falls into her arms. Her body shakes with the force of her cries and Tina holds her tighter. They cry together, much as they had done in the past. Over their parents, over Newt and Jacob, over life. No matter the reason, always together.

A sudden “ahem!” interrupts the moment and they pull away from each other to find Newt, stepping out of his case. His normally pleasant face is set in a scowl. 

“Newt! You’re all right,” exclaims Queenie, wiping at her face. She beams at her brother-in-law and Tina wishes she wouldn’t. If he was still in a foul mood, it would not end well.

“No thanks to your friend,” he grumbles, reaching past Tina for his suit jacket she’d mended of the rips, blood and tears. 

“Newt...” she warns, not looking at him.

“He’s not my friend.”

Tina notices the most minuscule wince from Newt as he lifts his arms into his jacket. She’d mended his skin, but his muscles and bones would be sore for some time, unless he let her tend to them as well. Though it was unlikely. “Since when? You were rather cosy here when I was his brother. What changed?” His tone was not a usual one. Newt was a man who strove to avoid confrontation at any and all cost. This argumentative compulsion is new, and Tina couldn’t say she liked it. He isn’t himself when he talks like this.

“Newt stop.” Their eyes finally meet, and she finds a well of great pain there. She wonders if he can see hers. 

“What changed, Queenie?” He demands softer this time, resigned.

Tina follows his eyes and looks at her sister with an uneasy gaze. _What did change?_

Queenie shuffles away from her, staring down at her hands, tears falling into her upturned palms. “I hurt my sister.” She looks up, eyes red and lips quivering. “I let him hurt her and I couldn’t live with myself after that.” 

The sharp intake of breath seems to burn her throat. “I thought about ending it.” It’s a sentence that shouldn’t be said as casually as she does. As though it was a given and they should expect no less, they should want for that.

“Queenie,” Tina whispers, shocked. If a heart could be heard, they would hear hers breaking.

“No. I deserved it,” she says, recoiling from the hand Tina had extended toward her. She doesn’t deserve that either. “But I realised what good what that do? How could I help you; make penance if I was dead? I couldn’t.”

“So, here we are.”

Newt scoffs incredulously. “Yes, here we are and all is well, yes? Tina? Everything is just perfect!” He holds his arms up in disbelief, laughing at the cruel irony of it all. 

“Enough!” Tina snaps. She understands Newt’s frustration and need for answers, but this attitude was helping no one. It was detestable, if she were being completely honest.

Newt and Tina glares pierce the tension between them, feeding it. It doesn’t hurt, having grown accustomed to it in the last hour, but it’s maddening all the same. She wants to fix this, apologise and tell him what he wants to know about her and Graves. But he is trying her patience.  
  
Finally, he breaks the eye contact with his wife and turns to address her sister. “You know, Tina might have forgiven you, but I haven’t.” _That was my baby, too._

What he’d communicated to Queenie in that exchange, Tina didn’t know, but by her sister’s reaction, she could easily guess.

Without another word, Newt wretches the case lid open and slams it shut above him. The sounds of him banging around, slamming things heavier than their weight could be heard by the sisters who grimaced when they hear the inevitable “blast it!”

Queenie nudges Tina, wiping away her tears ago. “That wasn’t just about me, was it?” 

Tina shakes her head, looking down, miserable. “We had a row.” She sees Queenie’s lip quirk upwards slightly in her peripheral vision. Her use of the British vernacular, unintentionally adopted from spending the better part of the last half decade around Newt, always amused her.

“What about?”

“Graves,” Tina sighs, rubbing at her eyes. The night was shaping up to be harder than the afternoon and evening that led up to. A part of her wished to be back in that dark, cramped interrogation room with Grindelwald again. At least there she could maintain a façade. Around her sister and husband, the emotions bled out of her pores, bare for the whole world to see. It’s exhausting and she longs for sleep.

“Oh!” Understanding is instant. “Oh...” Tina nods, _exactly_. “You gotta tell him. He’s your husband.”

She agreed, of course, but… “I don’t see why it’s so important. It’s in the past.”

“So was Leta,” Queenie points out warily. 

Of course, she could simplify it, easing through the wild mess of feelings and raw memory to find the crux of it all. _You’re right,_ Tina concedes silently _._

“How’s Jacob?” Queenie finally asks after a beat. Tina had been waiting, hoping for it. It would tell her that Queenie still cared for more than just her family. “Do you think he hates me?”

Tina squeezes her hand. “He couldn’t if he tried.” Contrary to Newt’s display of resentment moments before, Jacob too did not have a vindictive bone in his body. He is a gentle man with no shortage of kindness in his heart and he’d given it to Queenie. “He’s waiting for you.”

Sobs overwhelm Queenie once more, her energy waning from all of it. “I don’t deserve any of you.”

Tina shrugs light-heartedly. “But we’re here, and we’re gonna get you out. You and Credence.” It was the most determined she had been all night, resolute and finding she is able to cling to the strength she had in their mission. It's the only thing that made sense in that moment.

It's destabilised when something dark clouds Queenie’s face at once. “Uh... yes,” she hesitates. “About that...”


	14. Chapter 14

“I’m sorry, Tina...”

It’s not the first thing she expects to hear when she enters Newt’s case an hour after saying good night to her sister. Queenie had just left for the evening and Tina couldn’t put off talking to Newt any longer, no matter how heavy her heart felt beneath the weight of it all. She fully expected to be given the cold shoulder or at the very least, find him already curled up in their makeshift bed, exhausted by the day that seemed too long to last.

She wishes she could.

“Newt?” Tina calls out into the world beyond the shed. She’d heard him but couldn’t see him.

“Up here,” he answers from on top of the hut.

Following the voice, Tina exits the shed and turns left to make her way up the slight incline that led past the old Thunderbird enclosure. She only had to ask Newt once why he kept it, despite the space it took up amongst the other still occupied enclosures. Once and never again because the pain in his eyes was too much for her to witness. He missed Frank and likely all the creatures he’d released into the wild since. It was inevitable but necessary and he always dreaded when the time came around again.

“It’s what’s best for them,” Tina would always remind him, with a slight squeeze of his hand and her nose to his temple. “You’ve done all you can for them, but they need to be free again.” And this always helped make the transitions that small bit easier. It’s why he was doing all of this in the first place.

“What are you doing up here?” She asks upon finding him reclining against the chimney with Dougal in his lap. When the Demiguise clocks Tina however, Newt is abandoned and it’s her embrace the creature demands.

“Well, now I’m feeling rather rejected.” He jokes, feigning betrayal with an exaggerated huff. He knew fine well Dougal has a favourite and that it was not him.

Sensing this, Dougal grabs Tina’s hand and pulls her closer to where Newt sat until she too was seated on the moss-covered roof of the hut. There was barely an arms length between them now and Dougal made sure to occupy it, giving both his favourite humans the affections they so craved. So needy.

Silence fills the space between them until Newt speaks again. “I meant it, you know,” he starts, eyes on his hands. “I really am sorry. I behaved like a jealous fool.”

Tina shrugs, mindlessly examining the trinkets Dougal handed her. “My elusiveness didn’t help. I should’ve just told you what you wanted to know.”

They nod in agreement. They hate to fight and while emotions were running high and the slightest misstep could result in their deaths, there was really no excuse to allow such petty miseries to build tiers between them. They had to be a united pillar, strong against the tide and immovable against the dark forces outside the sanctuary of their case.

An hour apart had been enough to shake them awake from whatever foolhardy reverie the stress of the evening had plunged them into.

Tina feels Newt’s hand reach behind her back and pull her closer by the waist, Dougal having sauntered off when he realised she wasn’t paying enough attention to his treasured keepsakes. Their sides touching now, Tina leans against her husband and inhales the comforting scent of him. “I love you, Newt,” she promises as she nuzzles his neck.

His fingers tangle in her hair, tickling the skin of her neck beneath. “You’re the only love I’ve known.” She can hear him smile thoughtfully in the words. Yes, he might’ve been jealous that another man had once held her affections for a time, but he knew that he is the first and final owner of her heart. Much as she owns his.

They sit like that for a while, wrapped up in the other, grateful the tension had been diffused. Tina’s fingers tracing the muscles of Newt’s abdomen through the gap in his half-buttoned shirt. Newt’s breath gentle against her hair. They watch over the few beasts in the case, from the sleeping Zouwu to the keening Hippogriff family.All was still and quiet and comfortable. They found themselves forgetting where they were and in what danger they were in. Such was the nature of the case. An oasis in a desolate world. A reprieve from reality. 

But like all oases, they dry up eventually and reality comes crashing back with Tina’s words “Grindelwald wasn’t lying.”

“Hmm?”

“Before you, Graves and I... we had our moments.”

Newt tenses against her. She expected as much. “Nothing official. Never that serious.” She hopes it’s somewhat reassuring. “It was comfort more than anything else. We were two lonely Aurors who sometimes needed a shoulder, a confidante, a-“

“Lover.” The word is dry but not sharp in his mouth. It’s just a fact. Inescapable and true. He’d asked for this after all.

Tina nods.

“But that’s all it was. It was few and far between. Convenient. At least for me.”

“He wanted more?”

“Not at first,” she explains, shifting slightly so as to lean farther into him, to let him know she hopes he won’t retreat from her. That it is him she wants. “But when we found him after Grindelwald’s arrest...”

_** Four years ago... ** _

It was late and had she thought better of visiting at such a late hour, she would’ve postponed it until the next day. As it was, she’d been stuck at work all day and was desperate to see him. He had turned away all would-be-visitors and well wishers during his all too short stay in the hospital, so this would be her first chance to see him since finding him blooded and half-dead in a bottomless well.

“Miss Goldstein, please come in,” greeted the Graves family house-elf when she arrives at the imposing estate. “Master has been expecting you.”

“He has?” Of course he has.  _He wants to know why you didn’t notice he was not himself for the past month!_ The guilt she’d been feeling for a week since his discovery came rushing back in a tidal wave, knocking all courage out of her with a corrosive ebb.

“I trust you remember the way to his quarters?” Asked the house-elf unassumingly, knowing fine well she’d slept there more than a couple times already.

Tina nods and with a snap, she’s alone in the cold expanse of the foyer, rooted to the marble floor by the fear that she’ll be shunned from his presence by the very legitimate and justified anger he must be feeling. She could hear him now. “You of all people, Tina... you of all people ought to have known it wasn’t me.” She could already see the stinging glint of pain in his dark eyes.

“Tina?” A familiar voice riddled with an uncharacteristic hoarseness interrupts her self-deprecating thoughts from the balcony overlooking the entry hall.

She looks up to find him, half-dressed, his torso bandaged with gauze and his features clouded but not unwelcoming.

“Hi,” she starts in a small voice, afraid to overstep. She clasped her hands together and kept her head down, as though she were back in President Picquery’s office, about to be demoted for attacking the odious Barebone woman.

Graves had been there too. His expression softer than it should’ve been, dismayed by the circumstances and regretful that they fell upon her. He’d told her as much during the night that followed, wrapped in a blanket of fire whisky and sex. 

“I’d come down but...”

“Oh!”  _Stupid_ . “I’ll come up. You should be in bed anyway.”

“You were taking your sweet time.” His tone is more amused than Tina had expected. Wasn’t he angry? Hurt? Or, dare she be so bold, heartbroken?

Once she was on the landing, she stopped at the top of the stairs, uncertain in her approach.

“I’m sorry.” What else could she say?

“It’s okay, Tina.” It hurt to hear him say so, dismissing his own torment to reassure her of what was very much deserved guilt.

“No it’s not...” her words trailed off into sobs and she feels his non-bandaged arm slip around her at once.

“I forgive you.” He knows It’s what she needed to hear. 

They stand there for longer than his bruised spine would allow and when Tina feels him struggling to stay upright, she breaks the embrace and lets him lean on her. “Back to bed, mister. President Picquery will hex me if she knows I was the cause of your extended absence.”

Graves leans into her as they walk back to his bedroom. “Sera wouldn’t dare try it as long as I’m still breathing.” He winces when she lowers him back onto the mattress.

Tina summons the duvet back over his legs and tucks a stray hair behind her ear. “You oughta be carful. She’ll accuse you of favouritism again,” she humoured, remembering the first time he’d dared to show an interest in her in front of their superior. It started with a not-so-discreet wink across the bullpen to him assigning her double the paperwork so as to prove a point to Picquery that he was not, in any way whatsoever, sweet on his junior Auror.

The wounded man shrugged, “let her.” His hand reaches for hers and holds it there between them. “Being chained in a dark hole has a habit of shifting one’s priorities.” His thumb caressed the skin of her knuckles.

“Graves,” Tina swallowed with a slight quiver to her voice.

He tugs on her hand until she’s seated on the bed beside him. “I thought I’d never see you again.” She’d thought the same, but she could tell the conversation was about to get uncomfortable and she wasn’t ready for that.

“I’ll get you some Dreamless Sleep, huh? You need as much rest as you can get.” She started to retreat when he leans forward and presses his mouth to hers. It’s tender with a tug of desperation that breaks Tina’s heart.

She doesn’t pull away but instead waits for him to do so. When he doesn’t feel her return the kiss, he pulls back and queries her with his eyes. 

The soft but mournful look in hers answers for her. “I can’t...”

**_Present day_**...

“Can’t say I blame him,” Newt reasons with a slight shrug that’s only half-hearted. The truth of it was, he was still trying to rein in his jealousy. To hear Tina speak of her history with a man such as Graves was difficult, no matter the tense. It was only the present reality of her body against his and the ring on her finger that silenced his wandering doubts.

That being said, if he and Graves could agree on one thing, it was Tina.

“Maybe a year prior I might’ve accepted. Given it a try.”

“What stopped you?”

Tina sits up and turns to look at Newt, both palms now on his chest. Her eyes bore into his so that he might see the conviction in them.

_I met you_. 

“You did.”

Newt’s face lights up like a Niffler’s in a high-end jewellers fully stocked for the holidays. Tina leans into him, their foreheads touching and their lips formed into twin smiles. 

All is forgiven in this simple but loving exchange.

Hours seem to pass when Newt finally asks what Queenie had said to her when he’d left. He was still angry with the blonde and he couldn’t see himself forgiving her anytime soon. He would not begrudge Tina that, however. She missed her sister terribly and whatever feelings he had on the subject were, quite frankly, moot in comparison to his wife’s happiness. For which he’d give anything to ensure.

“Oh,” Tina answers, having remembered something she intended upon telling him right away but that seemed to have taken a backseat when they finally started to communicate. “Credence.”

“What about him? Is he safe? I haven’t seen him around since we’ve been here.” This didn’t strike them as odd considering they’d seen very little of the secret compound and much of that was spent under strict supervision.

No. Grindelwald would keep Credence far away from them for the time being. He couldn’t afford to lose his secret weapon to those he hadn’t even begun to trust. If ever he would. 

“He left.” 

Newt sits up, bringing Tina with him and looks straight at her. “What?”

Tina nods. “Apparently he left a week ago. They don’t know where he is.” The concern is immediate on her features. It mimicked the same worry she’d had for him all those years ago in New York and again a year later in Paris. “We have to find him, Newt.”

Newt’s gaze is distant, pensive but he keeps a hold of her. “I have an idea...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief interlude before we get back to the principle plot. Thank you for your patience and continued support.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: smut in the latter portion of this chapter

“I don’t trust him in this, Newt.”

“He’s my brother, Tina.”

The couple had been pacing around the case and each other for the better part of the night, forgoing sleep to devise a plan of action. Credence was missing and no one knew where he could’ve gone or with whom he could be with. Newt’s solution had been to write to their liaison Isaura in Castleobruxo so that she might send word to Theseus. He could use resources at the Ministry to track the Obscurial down before Grindelwald managed to find him.

Tina hadn’t been as receptive to this plan as Newt had hoped.

He sat on the small steps leading up to the old Thunderbird enclosure as Tina paces in front of him, her hands on her hips. They weren’t fighting, per se, reluctant to succumb to another so soon after they’d only just made up from the last. But it was a disagreement and if they didn’t find a solution soon, he might just be sleeping alone again, his arms bereft of her warmth and comfort. He needed it now more than ever.

“Then you know how dedicated he is to the rules.” She doesn’t have to explain what she means because Newt was once of the same opinion. It still rang true in that the majority of Aurors, his elder brother included, would use an easy end to justify the brutal, inhumane means of solving a problem. It was part of the job, truly, but Tina had avoided such cruelties in her nigh on ten years as an Auror. It had, as a matter of fact, inspired her brother-in-law to rethink his singular ideals when it came to following orders.

“He has changed,” Newt reasons with every bit of faith in Theseus who had come leaps and bounds in the past couple of years. Leta’s death too had been a prime incentive for this change. It would be an insult to her not to acknowledge the effort he’d made in her memory.

“I believe that,” Tina nods in agreement with a sensitive, lenient tone - she’d seen it with her own eyes, working alongside his brother for roughly two years and, aside from Graves, she couldn’t have asked for a better colleague and partner. He’d made her transition from MACUSA to the British Ministry smoother than her nerves would’ve allowed. She was grateful to him. “But will it be enough?”

She knew Theseus meant well and that he was fundamentally a wonderful person, but she also knows theres a growing pressure at the Ministries of the world, particularly in Europe, to catch Grindelwald. It was only her and Newt's current mission that was stalling the impatient, unrelenting forces of those in higher places in London from ordering a raid in every magical home in Rio. Theseus too, would feel this pressure and his need to wait at home for word from them would become more difficult as time passed. He would run out of excuses to tell the Minister before he was ultimately forced to take measures into his own, questionable hands. Theseus would be unable to stop him. Tina worries he wouldn't try. After all, who was Credence to him?

Newt pushes himself up onto his feet and approaches his wife, seeking her hand to hold within his own. “I understand your reservations, Tina, I do.” He presses his lips to her knuckles.

“But?” Tina raises an eyebrow, refusing to break eye contact even if he had. She could sense it coming.

His eyes find hers again and he swallows. “But... I think it’s worth the risk.” This earns a heavy sigh and a groan from Tina, but she does not pull away from him. “If you can’t trust him enough, trust me?”

Tina rolls her eyes at his expression and a slight smirk tickles the corners of her mouth. “Fine, but I get to write the letter.” She wants to communicate clearly to Theseus her feelings on the matter so that any and all mishaps be avoided, or else his manhood’s veracity might be called into question in ways he could not tell a soul for fear of sheer embarrassment. She meant business and Theseus ought to be reminded of such. Credence was not to be harmed, by him or any other law enforcer if it could be helped.

“Of course,” agrees Newt. “Good!” With that settled, Newt wraps an arm around her waist and whispers “bed” into her ear. It was a hallelujah chorus to her lethargic body and mind. Too exhausted to resist, she lets him usher her boneless body upstairs and out of the case to the overlarge suite they’d been given.

“You think he’s overcompensating for something?” Quips Tina as she begins removing her clothing with lacklustre waves of her wand.

Newt chuckles lightly from the other side of the even larger bed. “Too tired to transfigure some pyjamas but awake enough to make jokes at our captor’s expense? Oh, how I love you, my darling!”

Tina winks, beaming and although she had been planning on summoning some form of nightwear, she decides the appreciative, adoring leer her husband was sending in her direction was too flattering to pass up. Instead, she got under the silken silver sheet completely naked.

Newt does the same, though it’s less of a novelty when he does it as he often slept in the nude. “Too restrictive,” he’d tell her when her hand wandered too far for their lack of energy to allow any fondling to continue into something more.

This same lack of anything but a strong, unnatural desire to sleep possesses them as they curl up close to one another; skin to skin. But there was nothing sexual about their embrace, just loving and gentle. Necessary and natural.

Newt feels himself drifting off when he hears Tina say his name. “Hmm?” Her fingers press lightly against his chest, palming his heartbeat. He holds her hand there with his own.

“He’s gonna test us, isn’t he?” The apprehension that is evident in her voice is not new to him, but he dreads to hear it all the same. It makes him tighten his hold on her, pulling her impossibly closer to his body.

“I won’t lie and say it’s going to be easy,” he begins softly. Tina didn’t need to be coddled or for the truth to given to her sugar-coated, but Newt wanted to reassure her. “But I know it will be easier than the first time I was in this situation.”

Tina leans up on her elbow to look at him, to see his face in the half-light. “How can you be so sure?”

His fingers trace the contours of her spine, each bump of her vertebrae a promise he makes to her. “Because I’ve got you this time.”

Tina blinks and smiles ever so slightly, her senses heavy with anxiety of the dark unknown, but spirits momentarily lifted by her husband’s reassurance. “You got me,” she repeats, sealing the statement in an iron grip.

“Always.”

A slow, sensual kiss sends them both off into a peaceful oblivion.

Tina is woken after what seems like an insufficient hour of slumber by a rustling at the foot of the bed. Cooing followed it with a rather stern but still gentle warning. “Hush! You’ll wake mummy,” comes the voice, thick with sleep and a concentrated quiet so as not to do just that.

“Too late,” Tina larks from behind Newt who had moved farther down the mattress to attend to the noisy creatures in his case, making a ruckus in the small hours as they too were still adjusting to the change in time zones.

He jumps with a start and cranes his neck to look around at her with an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, love. Go back to sleep.”

Tina stretches and waves it off. “I had a very nice dream.”

“Oh?” He closes the lid of the case and ensures the latches are secured before asking her to continue. He’s still naked and shameless in that nudity. The sweltering heat of the Brazilian summer morning afforded them the comfort of not having to dress right away. Tina, unaccustomed to such high temperatures, couldn’t say she was opposed to the consequences before her in the form of Newt’s state of undress. If his vision wasn’t so fuzzy from having just woken himself, he would catch the lustful flare in her dark eyes, so like fire in water to him.

“Unfortunately, someone woke me up before it could get interesting...” Tina teases with a slight pout, hoping he’ll take the hint.

Interest piqued, Newt gets to his feet and turns so that his knees press against the bed, staring down at the supple shape of his wife’s lithe body hugged desperately by the thin material of the bedding. It left very little to the imagination. “Might I make it up to you?”

“I was hoping you’d offer,” she grins and leans back against the pillows, opening her legs in an invitation.

Newt wastes no time in taking it and lowers himself between them, crawling his way back up the bed, hovering above her. His hand guides him from her thighs to her hips, breasts and eventually, her neck, where he curves his fingers to the nape and dives headfirst into her skin. His lips and tongue centre around her pulse point whilst her fingernails rake the flesh at his shoulder blades.

“Newt,” Tina breathes, her eyes closed but her other senses wide open, ready to receive him. To feel all that he was willing to give.

His mouth abandons her neck when he feels her hand slip between their bodies, needing to touch him. There’s an immediate pressure at the base of his spine when her long fingers engulf the length of him, causing him to clench his backside. Tina’s free hand, edging around his hip, is grateful of the flexed muscles, exploring and caressing as she was.

“Keep that up and this will be over before it starts,” warns Newt, nipping at her jaw.

Tina hums against him, pushing her chest up against his and pressing her fingers harder against him. Her lips brush against his ear and all is silent around them. “Then start.”

It’s a challenge and he knows it. He missed how playful and competitive Tina became when it came to their intimate moments. Everything was always passionate and desperate and her eagerness to feel him against her, with her, inside of her made him feel wanted, worthy. Alive. It was only right that he returns the favour tenfold. Only the Maker knew when he’d next get the opportunity. He would not squander it now.

Bracing his weight on his forearms, Newt lifts his upper body up to stare down at Tina. His hips were still pressed into hers, the flimsy barrier of fabric did nothing to hide the fact they were both ready for the other, but Newt wishes to savour the moment; to marvel at the beauty of his wife and to commit his luck to memory, as if it were possible he could forget.

Tina said nothing in this silent exchange. She practices patience and waits for him to make the next move, surrendering the reins in the ultimate act of trust. Letting him lead the way. One hand settles against his waist and the other, his forearm.

“I missed you,” he says at last.

Of course, they’d been intimate at the masquerade ball back in London and almost again during the afternoon they arrived in Rio, but this, now, seemed different. Perhaps it’s in part related to their marital status - the wedding night they had yet to find time and energy for. What’s more, any and all tension between them, causing a rift and fuelling the distance, had evaporated and disappeared. There was quite simply nothing left to do but celebrate.

Tina’s eyes glisten up at Newt whose own green irises were wet with tears of a joy their hearts dare to feel in that moment. She leans up and presses her lips against his in a soft kiss. “Mine.”

Newt initiates the next kiss as he takes one hand and curves his fingers over the silk at her chest. “Yours.”

Tina’s hand meets his and tugs the sheet away from her skin. “Ours.”

The third kiss is hungry, ravenous and their tongues meet as their centres line up.

Caution blown to the wind and all second thoughts left forgotten, Tina adjusts herself to prepare for Newt who held himself steady and secure in the cradle of her long legs. It had been a while, but it feels like coming home when he enters her. It’s slow and measured at first, allowing Tina’s body to accommodate for his. Once he’s buried to the hilt, they fit perfectly together and a deep, guttural moan escapes Newt’s throat.

He is still for a long time as they kiss until Tina’s patience inevitably wears thin and she bucks her hips up and into his, urging him to move.

He does and it doesn’t take long for the knot deep in their abdomens to tighten and coil. Moans and heady gasps fill the cracks in the mountain wall and the wooden bed frame strains beneath the force and rhythm of Newt’s thrusts. His skin reddens from Tina’s nails and hers grows sensitive under his teeth.

Caught up in each other as they were, they didn’t notice the blue and rose-coloured tendrils floating with a transparent musicality around the room. They filter in and around furniture, weaving their way through stone and gravel until they reach the four posters of the bed, twirling around the branch-like stilts in a way a lost ribbon would float in the wind. The faster Newt’s hips moved, the brighter the colours became, fuelled by the passion they framed within the bed.

With their eyes closed, deaf and blind to all but each other, neither Newt nor Tina notice these peculiar fragments around them. Moving more violently as they near completion.

When Newt asks Tina to come with him, the twin streams join in a sudden, seamless collision of separate entities and explode in a flash of violet light that urges Tina’s eyes open just as she comes undone beneath Newt. The light fades before her eyes adjust enough to see it.

He empties himself inside her, pulsating and jerking uncontrollably before settling himself against her, his cheek on her breast. Spent. Fulfilled. Content.

“That was...” pants Newt delightedly, his hands stroking the contours of Tina’s ribcage with a feather-light touch.

“Wasn’t it?” She laughs lowly. Newt smiles as he feels the slight force of it against his chest. He made her happy. He did that. Pride swells around his heart and he kisses her breastbone before lifting himself up off of her and to his side of the bed.

A heavy sigh releases the remaining tension from their bodies. Not that there was much left. Newt had seen to that.

“Let’s get another hour or so in before someone comes to get us.” It wasn’t yet daybreak so they might be able to rest for a short time still. The subsequent day could wait. They fall into a deeper, less troubled sleep with Newt pressed snugly against Tina’s back, spooning her.

When they come to, it’s the younger Miss Goldstein shaking them awake with a gentle nudge. “Come on! Up and at ‘em, you two! It’s almost midday.” She points her wand in a delicate fashion towards the draperies, swishing open to reveal an artificial window they hadn't noticed the previous evening.

Tina groans and stretches against Newt whose brain had yet to engage itself in the present moment. “He let us sleep this long?”

Queenie shrugs. “He’s an extremist, not unreasonable to human needs.” She wanders around the room, setting to work on her sister’s outfit for the day as she so often did in the past. Tina was decidedly not a morning person and therefore dedicated little to no time to her daily attire. It makes her heart leap to watch Queenie resume these familiar activities she didn't know she'd missed until that moment. “Speaking of which, you better cast a muffling charm before you go at it again.”

Newt comes to almost instantly with a bright flush to his freckled cheeks. “Excuse me?”

Queenie giggles at the sight of them. Both her sister and brother-in-law sat bolt upright in bed, the covers clutched tightly at their chins, covering their immodesty from the one person who could see deep into their minds. It was lamentable, really. She shakes her head. “I’m only teasin’.”

A wave of relief steals over them, their spines and nerves relaxing. If the whole compound had heard them going at it like wild beasts, they'd have more than fear for their safety to contend with in the coming days or weeks.

“Did one of you guys use the floo after I left last night?” Comes the younger witch’s voice again, staring down at the floor at the base of the hearth.

Tina and Newt’s brows furrow in confusion when they share a look. “No, why?” Why should they? They didn’t even have access to the particular powder needed for the South American floo network. Apparently it was different in every continent.

“Come see.”

Tina elects to get up, Newt shying away from Queenie’s prying eyes and mind. He hasn't forgot his anger with her.

Once covered in a conjured robe, Tina approaches where her sister stood and it’s there she sees it:

A small pile of black and purple flecks of sparkling dust, glittering in the faux daylight beaming into the cavernous space of the mountain. It certainly hadn't been there the night before when they'd finally retired to bed and Newt would've noticed it when he'd been awoken by the restless creatures in the middle of the night.

No. This was recent. The faint trail of smoke rising steadily in the fireplace could tell them just that.

Someone had been in their room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another update in less than two days because I felt I owed it to you all after the delay in updating. Please let me know you’re still here for the ride! 
> 
> Also, you may have noticed by now that this work will be part of a series. Please let me know in a comment, or a message on tumblr, whether or not there are missing scenes thus far in my story that you would like to see developed into a separate one-shot. I have a couple in the works already but I would very much appreciate the input of my readers. As always, thank you for reading!


	16. Chapter 16

It starts with a thud from below.

Queenie jumps up from her spot on the foot of the bed, startled.

Tina leans against the marble of the fireplace, her hands fidgeting at the pockets of her navy slacks, on edge.

They had been waiting for Newt for half an hour after he’d disappeared into the case. They could hear him rummaging around in the workspace, searching for something he claims would tell them who or what had been in their room mere hours ago.

Much of the afternoon had been spent in their room, pacing and panicking, afraid to venture outside for fear of a flash of green light. They had deliberated for quarter of an hour about whether or not to send word to Isaura that they may be compromised. This was Newt’s idea and Queenie agreed. Their wife and sister, however, did not.

“We can’t be too hasty. We should find out who it was first and why they were here in the first place,” Tina had argued. “It might come to nothing.” It was less so her argument that convinced them and rather her rebuttal of all their what if’s and could be’s. It started with Tina standing her ground, hands on her hips and ended with Newt in his case, searching for this mysterious potion. He almost always gave in to her. Almost. Now was not one of those times. 

“Hey, Teen?” Queenie breaks the silence for lack of anything else to do.

“What?” Tina doesn’t intend to be curt with her sister, but her nerves were wracked and the uncertainty was proving to be more difficult than it should’ve been. She’d taken to biting her nails; an old habit she had thus far in their mission managed to avoid. She would kick herself for succumbing to it if she cared to. There are worse things she could do. 

Queenie seems to hesitate for a moment, unsure of herself. It makes the question that comes all the more loaded. “You were safe, right?”

“Safe?” Tina looks at her with a creased forehead.

“You know... last night? With Newt.”

Tina’s gaze immediately fogs over in response to the question. All fidgeting ceases and the temperature in the already stifling room felt unnaturally hot all of a sudden. Her face burns and her stomach lurches. _Mercy Lewis_...

“Teenie...” Queenie approaches, worry etched across her delicate features. She could just make out flashes in Tina’s mind that were beginning to overwhelm her. The blonde began to regret voicing her question on an already difficult day. When she’s close enough to touch, she places a hand on Tina’s shoulder which jerks slightly upon contact. Queenie withdraws her hand at once. “Tina?”

The older witch’s heart was beating a mile a minute and her thoughts were moving even faster. There was much in her head and heart in that moment and she doesn’t want to acknowledge any of it. Not right now. There was no room in her life for this. Not when that very life might just be teetering on a knife’s edge. 

“Not now, Queenie,” she said when her sister continues to hover. “One problem at a time.” She is already wrestling with the idea that a stranger had been watching her and her husband sleep or perhaps what had come before. It makes her spine lock and her neck ache from the eeriness of the situation. The last thing she needs is to become overwhelmed with the possibility of a maybe baby.

Queenie opens her mouth to object but is interrupted by the reappearance of Newt’s head. She feels a mental nudge in her mind from Tina that says, _not a word to him._

While she could respect it, Queenie has to roll her eyes at the notion. Newt, like Tina, is a grown adult, responsible for sound decision making. If he wasn’t considering the consequences of the previous night’s excursion with his wife, it would be difficult not to get frustrated with them. They’d been in this position before, so one would think they’d be more careful this time around. Tina’s reaction told her that they hadn’t. 

_Hopeless_ , Queenie shakes her head as she watches Tina help Newt out of the case. The gentleness with which she touches him makes the younger woman miss her love back in New York. She knows she doesn’t deserve Jacob, not after everything she’d done, but if he was still waiting for her like Tina had promised, how could she not long for the moment he would look upon her the way Newt was looking at her sister? She wonders if he thinks about her as often as he used to. If only her Legilimency could reach as far as home.

“What are we gonna do?” Tina’s voice lunges Queenie back to the matter at hand.

Newt’s mind was overwrought with the lack of a solution. Apparently, he hadn’t found what he’d been searching for. It was giving her a headache to hear it.

Tina’s thoughts were half in the present and half in the future she’d forewarned only moments ago.

Neither of them were equipped to handle the current issue so, it was down to her. “We don’t gotta do anything,” she suggests.

The couple’s heads snap around to gawk at her. Newt was wide-eyed and Tina, if she didn’t know her as well as she did, would be scowling.

“Listen,” Queenie approaches them with her hands out in front of her. “If they knew anything, someone would’ve come to get you by now. You might even be dead. Grindelwald doesn’t waste time.” Especially when he could feel the authorities closing in on him. Little did he know...

“That’s a big if, Queenie.” Tina sighs, slumping onto the edge of the bed before thinking better of it and leaning against one of the posts. The tussled bedclothes were a reminder of her indiscretion she doesn’t need at that precise moment.

“Can’t you listen for anything?” Newt wonders, having missed his wife’s odd behaviour.

Queenie nods, “I can, but only if we leave the room.” She goes onto explain how she’d been tasked with giving them a tour of the secret base and it would be as good an opportunity as any to scope out what people knew about their latest arrivals.

It was a risk, but it was a smart one. It was one they would have to take eventually.

Before they leave the room, Newt places a disillusionment charm on his case as a security measure. He did not yet know the extent of their company or if any among them were interested in magical beasts in any regard. This chance he would not take even if his own life were at stake.

Once they’ve stepped out over the threshold, he’s surprised to feel Tina reach for his hand, intertwining their fingers tightly. She was never much for public displays of affection, so this gesture spoke volumes about how nervous she was feeling. It makes his palms sweaty and his heart race. He hopes she doesn’t notice.

Queenie leads the way for the most part. The secret mountain base was as extensive as one could expect. The meandering corridors seemed to extend deep into the Brazilian terrain, branching off every so often into more complicated labyrinths they daren’t venture into for fear of getting lost. “We’ve been here for nearly a year and I still haven’t seen everything.”

“Do you want to?” Tina asks, but she’s not sure if she said it aloud or not.

The silence is her answer.

What was thus far a seemingly vacant tour of a place supposedly filled with acolytes, eventually delivered in the form of Abernathy and Rosier. They had apparently just returned from the city on an errand for their master according to what Queenie could pick up from their minds. It was aiding to the headache to wade through Abernathy’s searing contempt and Vinda’s leering thoughts directed at herself and Tina.

The French woman had offered Queenie comfort in the shape of a bedfellow several times throughout the years. Each time she tried, she would be met with a polite refusal. Fortunately, it had never wounded her ego and there was no retaliation.

She could not say the same for Abernathy who had taken rejection to extreme heights. At one point, shortly after she’d first joined The Alliance, the snivelling excuse of a man had attempted to sabotage Grindelwald’s image of her. Luckily, once more, her gifts proved to be far too valuable for him to pay heed to his American follower’s denouncements about the resident Legilimens. He’d since tried once more but no such plans linger in his mind at this precise moment. Instead, his ire was directed at Tina. 

Panic surges through Queenie, searching frantically, weaving through his thoughts for any trace of anything at all detrimental to the mission.

She finds nothing. Nothing in Vinda’s illustrious mind either, save visions of what she might like to do with Tina, were she partial to fumbling’s in the dark with an enemy turned alleged ally. 

Relief replaces the worry with a heavy sigh and Queenie beckons both her sister and brother-in-law to follow her into the next room.

The tour quickly grows tedious when each person they passed paid them no mind. Of course, this was preferable to being bound and cursed for treachery, but Tina lost all patience after the umpteenth stroll past what felt like the same room over and over again. Newt too was growing antsy and wished to get back to his creatures. Truthfully, he feared someone, the same person from the night before, was back in their room.

Queenie understood their feelings, privy to them as she was, but she refused to let them go until she’d read the mind of every last person in residence. Her time locked away from the world with such dark, twisted minds had made her overly cautious. Oftentimes more so than her naturally neurotic sister. 

Finally, when they seemed to be in the clear, she relents and tells them they could go back to their rooms to prepare for a Grindelwald’s inevitable summons. When it would be, they didn’t know, but Newt decides he wants to be prepared and starts off down the corridor before he realises that his wife was not following.

“Tina?”

He finds her hovering by a closed door, not unlike the imposing black one at the enchanted entrance to the mountain. “What’s in here, Queenie?” She asks her sister who had stepped back from the door.

“It’s _his_ room. No one is allowed to enter,” she explains with some trepidation in her voice.

“Ever?”

Queenie nods. “Let’s go on and head back, huh?” 

Newt agrees and places his arm around Tina’s waist, ushering her away from the door. He was getting uncomfortable with how she was looking at it. He doesn’t consider himself an overly curious man unless magical creatures were involved, but his wife was inquisitive to a fault; to the point of trouble. It makes him uneasy.

“Come on, love. Dougal will be missing you.” It’s enough to coax her free from her fixation and they head back through the winding maze of archways and pointless rooms.

Queenie joins them, eager to see inside Newt’s case again. Despite his very real resentment towards her, he agrees, if only for Tina’s sake. She seemed in desperate need of a distraction and he would not deny her some quality time with her sister.

Considering Queenie’s tour had taken several hours, stopping at every occupied room to listen in on any possible plots, it was already time for an evening meal. Thankfully it had been brought to their room by miserable house elves, so they weren’t expected to make themselves presentable for anyone.

When the clock chimed midnight, Grindelwald’s visit seemed very unlikely and they all decided to retire for the night.

Queenie hugged Tina for a whole two minutes, whispering something in her ear that Newt didn’t quite catch. The words “safe” and “test potion” filter towards his ears but as to their meaning? He hadn’t a clue. He is fully prepared to ask Tina when Queenie leaves their room, but the sudden paleness of her complexion deterred such a question.

“What’s wrong?” He asks instead.

Tina smiles, shaking it off. “It’s nothing.”

They may have only been married a few short weeks, but Newt has known Tina long enough to know that “nothing” means it’s something.

He secures his case and wave his wand over it, resetting the disillusionment charm before approaching her as she changes for bed. “You can tell me, you know.”

She doesn’t look at him right away, just continues to unlace her boots when she responds with “I know.”

“But you don’t want to.”

Tina shakes her head. “I’m just tired. It’s really not important right now.”

Newt has also learned when not to insist. By the strain in her neck and the whiteness to her knuckles, he knows this is one of those times. “Let’s get some rest, then.”

Ten minutes later they’re both settled into bed. Tina grants him a chaste kiss on the lips but doesn’t cuddle up to him as she’d done the previous night. It makes the worry rise in his stomach again. The worries from earlier in the day had exhausted him enough that his body demanded sleep over rumination. He falls within ten minutes. 

Another ten minutes tick by, then another before Tina shuffles back up off the bed, trying not to wake Newt. She reaches for her wand and transfigures some dark clothes over her pyjamas. _This’ll do_ , she decides to herself before moving towards the door, light on her feet so that the solid stone floor wouldn’t absorb the sound. 

Since she’d seen Queenie’s reaction to the room they were not permitted to enter, coupled with the anxiety of their cover being blown so soon, the need to find something worthwhile and fast was overwhelming Tina to the core. She just had to know what Grindelwald was hiding from his followers. The sooner they knew something, the sooner they could leave. This sudden urgency wasn’t in any way related to Queenie’s concerns about last night’s careless fumble with Newt. Not in the slightest, thank you very much. The possibility of being pregnant again in any close proximity to the man who had ended the last was not consuming Tina’s mind as she makes her way through the dimly lit corridors. Absolutely not.

Footsteps up ahead cause her heart to stop suddenly and she finds the nearest dark corner to hide in until they pass.

This lurking around in the dark, in secret reminds her of a time almost a year ago in which Newt expressed his concern for their impending child for the first time.

**_Ten months ago..._ **

“Where in the bloody hell have you been?!” Met her ears when she locks the front door.

Tina groaned, rolling her eyes and rubbing her belly, still small but certainly visible beneath her customary white blouse. “I told you not to wait up.”

Newt marched towards her, helping her out of her rain-soaked coat she was struggling with. “And that’s all you told me. No explanation, no location. Nothing, Tina.” His tone is angrier than she’d ever heard it. “How was I supposed to go to bed not knowing how or where you were?"

“Why do you care?” She asked in a tired voice. Her body was heavy with lethargy and pregnancy and she only wanted to sleep. She didn’t need this.

Newt followed her into the living room, demanding his questions be answered, affronted by hers. “Because I care about you, especially in your condition.”

Tina settled into the armchair, her eyes closed. “I ask again, why do you care?”

He doesn’t answer right away, busy trying to maintain his patience. She was trying it tonight. Her workday at the Ministry ended around 6pm and it was now almost 2am. She had sent him an owl that read “Will be home late. Don’t wait up” followed not by the customary “love, yours” but by the Ministry logo that came imbedded into the parchment she’d used. Ordinarily she would use her own paper to send him owls, but apparently, a sheet would’ve been wasted on him. 

Her dismissive attitude towards him was understandable, but to doubt that he cared for her altogether was a step too far. “I love you, Tina. More than anything in this world. I think you know that.”

Her hand drops from her face and she looks up at him. “I can’t.” She gets up as quickly as her body would allow and started for the door to go upstairs and away from him. This was too much as well. 

“Wait!” 

She stops but doesn’t turn. She could feel his approach before his hand finds a spot on her stomach.

“Please. Believe me,” he pleads. “If nothing else, remember that I love you and if something happened to you or to...” He trails off but his eyes drop to her middle, to where his hand curved around the bump. “I care. More than you’ll let yourself believe.” 

The pain in his eyes is deep and raw and it’s too much for Tina to see.

She pushed passed him and retired for the night, crying herself to sleep with the sound of his words in her ears and the feel of his hand burned into the skin of her abdomen. 

Guilt filled her tears as she fell.

**_Present Day..._ **

In hindsight, Tina feels rather stupid for not noticing every time he showed that he cared for not just her, but their baby as well. She feels even worse for doubting him, pushing him away. Worse still for going behind his back and waiting until he fell asleep to sneak out of the room and pursue this on her own. 

The footsteps in the dark trail away until the hallway is silenced once more.

With no further interruptions, she arrives at Grindelwald’s door in less than half the time it took Queenie to reach this part of the base. The door is slightly ajar, and a deep blue light was emanating through the gap. It’s then she hears the voices.

Two.

One was unmistakably that of the soft-spoken yet menacing Grindelwald. The other, however, was louder, faster but not obnoxiously so. By the higher pitched tone, it seemed to be a woman. A voice that sounded somewhat familiar to Tina as the conversation continues.

“I have watched him for many years, Master. There were no indications of this. None that I saw.”

The use of the term “Master” makes Tina’s throat restrict uncomfortably.

“So, he is lying once again?”

“I don’t know, Sir. The woman... I couldn’t speak for her beliefs, but I think he would follow her anywhere.” There is a conspicuous bitterness in the tail end of this sentence.

“The Vow saw to that.”

“Quite, Master.”

Tina began to hear footsteps, though they did not approach. Instead, they seemed to pace across the floor.

“The benefit of the doubt then. I’ll afford them that... for now.”

The interloper was so desperate to hear each syllable of every word, she doesn’t realise how hard she pushes against the wood of the door. The creek of movement snaps her out of it.

The pacing stops instantly, and a horrible silence floods the air around them.

“Someone is listening, Master!”

“A fly on the wall.” Tina can tell he’s grinning maliciously by the malevolence in his voice.

On instinct, she tries to disapparate but naturally, it was magically prohibited in this god-forsaken fortress. Relying instead upon her well-practiced legs, she takes off down the winding corridor in a sprint, with the fading hope he hadn’t seen her.

She is fairly certain he and whomever the voice belonged to had been discussing herself and Newt. If he’d planned on giving them the benefit of the doubt, it would be ruined now. She resists the urge to pull her hair out the closer she gets to her room. 

Once inside, the sound of the deadbolt and her panting awakens Newt. “Tina?”

She squeezes her eyes shut, back flat against the wood of the door, her heart racing. “What have I done....”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, who do we think the voice belongs to?


	17. Chapter 17

Newt blinks away the sleep from his eyes, bringing a panicked Tina into focus. Her chest heaves and her eyes are wide, frozen in shock. Newt’s abrupt awakening was a shock to him as well and it takes a few seconds for his brain to engage itself in the moment.

“I’m so sorry, Newt...” Tina starts, struggling to catch her breath. He had seldom seen her so upset. It’s alarming and it has him up and out of bed in an instant. Sleep deprivation be damned.

He’s at her side at once. “Just breathe, love.” He takes a firm grasp of her elbows and tries to meet her gaze. “That’s it,” he tells her as she starts to calm down. “Let’s sit down.” He takes her hand and wraps his arm around her waist. He feels her whole body tremble against him and it makes him nauseous with anxiety. What in the world had happened and why was she out of bed?

She is silent for a long time. Her eyes unfocused and clouded over with something ominous. She seems everywhere except there, in the room, with Newt.

He kneels in front of her and engulfs her hands in his, imploring her to look at him., to acknowledge his presence so that he may begin to bring her back to him. “Tina, you’re frightening me. What has happened?”

She follows his voice in the dark, in the fog. It’s her lighthouse in the dense sea mist of her fear and he is at the shore, waiting for her. His hands are her anchor to reality and it pulls her back in a gentle tug. Her voice is small and wavering at first but finally, she answers. “I was spying, outside his room.”

She can hear him suppress the inevitable sigh she’d been expecting. “Tina...”

“I know,” she nods, looking down, filled with shame but the need to explain herself is too loud to stifle. “I know we agreed to this but I just couldn’t miss the opportunity to find something useful. The sooner we do, the sooner we can go home.” And she so desperately wants to go back to New York or London. It doesn’t matter where, as long as Newt and Queenie joined her.

Newt releases her hands and retreats, standing up, his back to her. The hunch and tension in his shoulders tells Tina that he’s disappointed. “We’re a team, Tina. You shouldn’t have gone off alone.” Of course, he’s right and she would willingly concede as much. But it isn’t so easy and she isn’t brave enough to tell him the other reason for her sudden desire to hasten the mission to its end.

She settles for a defeated, forlorn sounding “I’m sorry,” instead.

Newt rubs at his templeand exhales. “Did he see you?”

Tina shakes her head, sniffing away the tears. “I don’t know, I don’t think so.” In truth, she did not cry for herself but for Newt. If she were to be punished for her misdeeds, Newt would surely be the target. His very life may depend upon whether she’d been out of sight fast enough.

Is it a risk they can afford to take? Would they have to sleep in shifts? Could they leave their room without watching their backs for fear of a wand pointing at it? They don’t have to ruminate long on the matter because suddenly; a knock sounds at the door.

Their hearts stop.

Their eyes meet in a sudden collision of panic. 

Tina gets to her feet immediately, Newt moves to stand close to her before pointing his wand at the door to open.

It’s Grindelwald. Of course it is.

“Good evening,” he begins in his ordinarily polite and pleasant manner as he enters the room. “I trust you’ve had a comfortable stay so far?” There’s a hint of knowing in his voice. It’s subtle but Newt can hear it and it makes him wish Queenie was present.

“What do you want?” Tina demands, decidedly far too belligerently for Newt’s nerves. He winces to himself when he hears it. It was only moments ago she was crying from the terror of being caught eavesdropping. Now she appears ready to duel if it came to it. He has an incredibly contrary wife, he muses to himself.

“Is that any way to speak to your host?” Thankfully he’s sounds more amused than anything.

Newt steps closer still to Tina who had placed herself between him and the enemy. It seemed to be her natural response to such situations, always in a protective mode whenever he is around. It would be endearing if it didn’t mean she put herself in danger in his stead.

He places his hands on both of her shoulders, squeezing the fingertips lightly into her skin, but hard enough so that she’ll calm down and come back to herself. She should exercise only caution at this precise moment. “Apologies. It’s just very late,” Newt mutters.

“But not too late for casual strolls in the dark?” Grindelwald smirks, raising an eyebrow. 

“Mr Grindelwald, I-“ Tina feels much the way she did when President Picquery had called her to her office on the topmost floor of the Woolworth building. The gildedornamental owls on the ceiling did little to obscure the blow of her devastating demotion.

Before she can continue, Grindelwald holds up his hand to silence her.

“I understand. I do.” He nods, taking a turn about the room, admiring their personal additions to quarterhe’d no doubt designed. “You’re concerned, rightfully so. Your place here is not set in stone and frankly, I can’t say I trust either of you yet.” The way he confirms what they’d frightfully suspected is said in much too casual a tone for them to remain calm, no matter how hard Newt pressed against Tina’s back.

“But I’m surprised at you Tina,” he adds once seated in the armchair facing the hearth.

Tina scoffs in spite of herself. 

“Tina,” Newt warns in that cautionary tone that tells her to stop.

She knows the cue well, but elects to ignore it. “With all due respect, Sir... I don’t think that’s true.” He had, after all, seen how relentless she was during his time as Graves. A demotion and threat of complete dismissal had not deterred her from tracking the Second Salemers across the five boroughs of New York City. Although she knew she had been better off staying put, tonight included, it was not at all in her nature. He should not be surprised.

Thinking back, Grindelwald nods. “Fair point.”

He adjusts his position in the chair, facing away from them, conjuring fire onto the coals. “The problem remains, how am I to trust you if you don’t trust me?”

They don’t reply. They don’t have one.

“Precisely.”

His wand hangs loose between his fingers, dangling over the arm of the couch, though not without strategic placement as it was pointing directly at the couple. “So, what’s to be done about that, hmm?” Its an intimidation tactic they knew well. It makes their hands reach for their own wands.

“I was planning on letting you get settled in for the rest of the week but as it stands, I think your first test should be rescheduled for tomorrow.” What this could mean, Tina can barely hazard a guess, but she’s certain by the alarmed expression on Newt’s face, he has intimate knowledge of such a test.

Grindelwald seems to notice too when he leaves the chair. The fire he’d spelled ceased burning immediately and the sparks float upwards and out of sight. Tina wishes she could disappear too. “Don’t look so afraid, Newton. One might think you’re hiding something.” The smirk from before makes another appearance on his pallid, sickly countenance. It’s menacing.

He passes them without another glance and says “get some rest.”

The door locks itself behind him.

...

Theseus did not consider himself an impatient man, but he knows others might. 

He has a temper, that he could admit. But to say he struggled to control it was to say he is not an excellent Auror. He doesn’t mind saying so. He is the head of Britain’s Magical Law Enforcement for kniff’s sake! And no matter how many times his sister-in-law teased him over his grumpy outbursts, whether it be in person or in writing, he refuses to concede he has an uncontrollable temper. 

The portrait of former Minister for Magic, Eldritch Diggory had only sparked as he’d passed it whilst reading the first correspondence from his brother and Tina. No flames had been ignited. Temper sufficiently controlled, thank you very much.

And even if he had destroyed the painting of one of the first Ministers in office, no one could blame him. Not after reading the absolute buffoonery that had come in the form of parchment covered in blood stains.

“Not to worry,” his absolute tool of a little brother had written with regards to the several droplets of dried blood left on the paper. “Everything is going as planned. Only a few minor hiccoughs but nothing to be concerned about.” He’d assured in slightly scribbled handwriting. What he’d failed to enclose was an explanation. 

Instead, he’d received an extra letter from Tina who offered up no such reasons for the colourful note from his brother, for it was not quite long enough to be worthy of the title “letter”.However, her’s at least was a bit more substantial and informative.

_Dear Theseus,_

_I hope this finds you in good health. Newt and I are perfectly fine and have successfully convinced Grindelwald for the time being. Your brother will have no doubt told you as much in his letter but I know you would appreciate my input as well._

_In other news, I’ve spoken with my sister and as she understands it, Credence left The Alliance only a week before our arrival. No one here knows where he might’ve gone. I won’t lie and say I wasn’t concerned about sharing this with you, but Newt trusts you and I suppose I do too._

_If there’s anything you can do with this information, I know you’ll do the right thing._  
  
Tina

_P.S. I’ve attached an envelope containing a letter from my sister addressed to a Mr. Jacob Kowalski. I’m sure you remember him. Please forward the letter to his bakery in New York._

They were fine. Good.

Everything was going according to plan. Excellent.

Queenie was keeping up her end of the bargain. Even better.

They were not being completely honest. Abysmal. 

He recalls mere weeks earlier having talked with both of them in private before their departure. 

**_One month ago..._ **

Newt was upstairs packing away clothing for the trip, at Tina’s insistence. “You can’t wear the same thing every day, Newt.”

He had opened his mouth to argue. Likely something about refreshing charms but had decided against it given the stern look she threw his way.

Theseus marvelled at the exchange with a quirk to his lips. He’d never seen his brother quite so relenting with anyone else. The boy certainly had it bad for this American witch he’d come to call ‘friend’ over the couple years they’d worked closely together.

It was during Newt’s scuttling about upstairs that he took the opportunity to speak in private with Tina.

“Tina, I know Dumbledore has already asked much of you, “ Theseus begins from the chair opposite her. “But might I ask o small favour?”

“What is it?” She was not one to dally. 

“I want you to tell me everything. Anything at all.”

Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Well that goes without saying.”

Theseus shook his head, listening to make sure Newt was not within earshot, despite planning on having the same conversation with him later. “I don’t mean just about the progress of the mission, but about how you’re both doing.”

“Theseus...”

He continues, ignoring the interruption. “Newt never got the chance last time. Yes, he could come home every now and then but you know as well as I do that he’s not the same man he was when he left.” He was still Newt, of course, but there was no denying his experience undercover with little to no outlet had hardened him somewhat. He’d often refused to discuss it whenever he’d return home for the brief periods of time. With both his brother and his love. 

Tina understood Theseus’s concerns. She appreciated that he cared enough to ask. She nods in agreement to his terms. 

“Thank you.” It would keep his mind at ease whilst feeling absolutely useless waiting at home. If there were measures he could take to make their mission easier, he would do it. But he couldn’t know what they needed unless they are honest.

**_Present day..._ **

Apparently they had forgotten somewhere between Newt bleeding all over a piece of parchment and not caring enough to write a fresh one or to stop the bleeding and Tina bending the truth to spare him any details he’d so explicitly asked for.

He wonders if Isaura had also received an equally cryptic and vague letter from them before she’d sent the rest his way.

He sighs heavily, but it does nothing to relieve his body of the stress they’d created. 

He rereads their letters a second time and considers his options regarding Credence.

A week is not a long time to travel far and it’s unlikely the boy had been taught to floo or to apparate so early in his studies. Newt had observed Grindelwald teaching him basic spell work only a year prior. Teleportation would be quite a while off yet.

No, he could not have gotten far. He would likely still be in the Americas if he was using the Muggle modes of transportation. After all, it had taken Newt and Tina three weeks to reach Rio from New York, granted they had a public persona to create along the way. 

Still, Credence would be heading for a main port. One he is familiar with already. A port that was in close proximity to one Jacob Kowalski.

In the late hour at the empty Auror office, with the unopened letter in hand, Theseus Scamander decides he doesn’t feel quite so useless after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s my birthday (Oct 15th) so have a new chapter! Who is looking forward to some interactions between Theseus and Jacob? I have some big plans for them, just as Grindelwald has for Newt and Tina. Scared? You should be. Thoughts? Share ‘em!


	18. Chapter 18

Newt supposes he looks angry given the look of apprehension and guilt etched into his wife’s features. He wonders what anger looks like on his but thinks better of looking in the mirror. If it resembled anything like it felt, he’d prefer never to know.

“Please don’t start,” pleads Tina with a sigh as she moves past him to take her shoes off. There were still many hours of darkness left and Tina’s body had been demanding rest even during Queenie’s overlong tour. The oncoming headache is a sign that her brain is also in desperate need of a recharge. She would find some with or without Newt in bed beside her, though she had no qualms in admitting she’d much prefer the former.

In response to her dismissive words, the rage flares hotter in Newt but he manages to hold his tongue. “I didn’t say anything.” 

“You didn’t have to.”

Newt would scoff at this if he had the energy. She was acting like her sister, so sure of what others were thinking and feeling purely based off of the emotions they expressed. Queenie may be skilled in mind-reading, but her interpretations of what she found was not always correct. Internal images become obscured and feelings are often disordered in her attempts to understand them. Her older sister, a trained interrogator, was no stranger to being mistaken either.

If only this was one of those times.

He knows his impatience and intolerance was seeping through his every pore in stifling waves of tension. It was thick between them, heavy on their nerves. And Newt feels close to losing his.

He can’t help himself any longer. “Tina, how could you be so reckless?”

There’s a stifled groan in Tina’s throat through the long exhale before she responds. “I know it was stupid.” She sounds defeated and dejected and the weariness in her voice makes Newt feel awful for reprimanding her. If he were being honest with himself, the chances of losing her had increased astronomically in the past few days and as a result, his mind had not for a moment since entering the mountain known peace. The anxiety deep in his core bubbled relentlessly in his stomach, a constant discomfort in Grindelwald’s wake. It was no small stretch of the imagination to say Tina’s exacerbating the chances of her coming to harm had frightened Newt thusly. The anger he feels with her now is the result.

He moves to stand in front of her as she sits on the side of the bed. He knows how tired she must be because he too yearns for sleep. “You ought to have thought of that before doing it.” He is not unaccustomed to speaking his mind anymore, especially with Tina, but confrontation is still unsteady territory. When needs must, however... “Honestly, Tina…what did you think was going to happen?”

In the dull, fading glow of the candlelight, Newt can just make out a creased brow and sharp look on Tina’s face. It’s her turn to be angry. “Like you’re so conscientious? I’m not the only one who doesn’t think before acting, Newt,” she fumes with a bite in her words.

Taken aback by the sudden sharpness of her tone, confusion carries the question “What does that mean?”

“What I said,” Tina grumbles, pushing past him to fetch her pyjamas from where they hung over the dressing screen. She would transfigure them onto her body if such a spell did not ask for an alert mind and clear intent. As it stood, her mind had scarcely been more clouded.

She disappears behind the screen to change. Ordinarily she would do so in front of him but tonight she doesn’t want him looking at her, retreating into the hard, impervious shell from so many years ago.

Newt approaches the screen but does not impose upon her privacy. “You’re implying something. What is it?” She doesn’t get to make accusations and leave them hanging in the air, loose and without substance. They’d had their fill of miscommunication to last them a lifetime.

“Just that neither of us are exactly the smartest people when we’re caught up in our emotions,” she explains through the barrier between them.

“What are you saying?” 

If Newt could see beyond the engraved wooden panels, he would see Tina’s trembling hand placed gently upon the fading stretched skin on her abdomen. The lingering sting of a memory brings hot tears to her eyes.

“Forget it.” She sniffs and finishes dressing for bed. She places her clothes where her pyjamas had been and decides now is not the time to have this conversation. The threatening tenderness in her heart would not allow it.

“Explain,” demands Newt as his eyes follow her moving back to the bed.

“I shouldn’t have to.”

“Tina-” he reaches out to grab her arm when she starts to walk away.

“Stop!” She interrupts, pulling her arm free of his clutch, eyes impossibly darker. “Drop it, Newt.” There is a small measure of pleading in her voice, echoed by the wetness forming in the corner of her eyes. It breaks Newt’s heart to see it, to know that in some way, he’d been a cause of it. He doesn’t know why or how, only that his insistence is not helping. As such, he takes the hint and gives her some space. His arms fall to his sides.

“We have to focus.” Tina adds, buttoning her nightshirt the rest of the way. She notes that Newt had still forgone his own, leaving his chest bare to the night air. If she was in a better mood, she’d smile at how comfortable he had become with her. They are married after all.

Newt sighs, relenting. He nods. There are more pressing matters.

He leans against the poster at the foot of the bed closest to where Tina sat. She was inspecting the still healing wound from the Hippogriff’s talons from days prior. Newt considers offering to help tend to it, but he has a feeling she would not be receptive to his touch at the moment.

“The first test. Do you have any idea what it might be?” She asks, readjusting her sleeve over the irritated skin.

“I was never tested, but I did witness others. They were...” he drifts off. The air in the room suddenly became conspicuously lacking.

“They were what?” Tina shifts closer to the end of the bed towards where Newt stood, placing a tentative hand on his arm. “Newt?”

The world seems to go silent and still, concentrated with dense white noise, a static to Newt’s ears. “Tina, I think we should leave now. Grab Queenie and escape.”

A beat.

“What?” Tina gapes incredulously.

His eyes have somehow increased in size, expression desperate and wild as he hurries to sit beside her, taking her hands into his. “Let’s just leave. Right now. Queenie will know a way out.”

Tina stares back at her husband with a look of alarmed confusion. What on Earth had gotten into him? “We can’t abandon the mission. It’s our duty.” They’d come so far in such a short time, been through far too much in the past four years to turn back now. They are so close. How could he consider abandoning all of it?

“There will be no mission if we’re dead.”

Tina stands up, unsettled by his frankness. “Newt, what aren’t you telling me?” He had shared seldom of his time with The Alliance, only small details here and there, between the comfort of the covers and her arms. Tina recognised trauma when she saw it and never pressed him for more than he was willing and able to give. What little she did know, he’d seen and experienced something that plagued his nightmares as often as the Cruciatus curse bedevilled her. 

Newt gets to his feet as well and lifts his hands to her face, cupping the delicate jawbones against his palms. “You never have to find out if we leave now.” His eyes implore her.

“You know we can’t leave, Newt. We’d never make it.”

“We can try.” In her silence he adds, “please Tina.”

She opens her mouth to speak but a knock silences her words.

“It’s me,” comes Queenie’s voice from outside the room. Tina waves her hand in the direction of the door and it opens on command.

The blonde enters, careful in closing the door so as not to awaken anyone else close by. She stops after a few steps into the room and presses a hand to her forehead. “Oh boy it’s loud in here. Did you two fight again?”

Both Newt and Tina’s gazes fall to their feet, ashamed. Queenie rolls her eyes.

“I listened around. I found out what your first test is.”

Eyes front once more, Tina moves past Newt to see her sister more clearly. “What is it?”

…

The darkness is total, save for the few sparsely lit streetlamps lining the Brazilian street with a feeble glow that is colder than the humid air felt against the skin. It casts a chill in the night. It’s not one that can be felt by the body, but by the destabilised murmur of the heart.

Newt and Tina’s were bursting out of their chests as they follow Grindelwald and his chosen accolades through the dark and vacant passageway.

They walk hand in hand behind him, clinging to one another for strength. They’ll need it for what’s to come.

They’d been walking for the better part of an hour and it was no one’s guess as to why they couldn’t just apparate to the intended destination. Newt knew the journey was a deliberate scare tactic Grindelwald employed to frighten the would-be-traitors to the point their deception was easily unmasked even before the real task begun. The long and trying trek over the rough and steep terrain, surrounded by wanded wizards and one’s own increasing anxiety, they were predestined to break, to crumble there on the mountainside.

Newt wishes he could say it wasn’t working. Were he alone, perhaps then he might’ve managed better, but with Tina by his side, in danger, he finds he cannot relax enough to loosen his grip on her hand. She squeezes back every few minutes, reassuring him. It does no more settle his violently churning stomach than the wand tip he could feel pressed at the base of his spine.

 _Last time was far easier than this_ , he muses to himself, remembering the time he’d spent alone undercover. At least then he knew Tina was safe at home.

The farther they climb, the harsher the ground seemed to become. It would only take a single step, a stumble for Grindelwald to fall face first into the jagged rocks at their feet. The possibility that it would kill him upon impact was highly unlikely, but Newt could hope.

Despite this, the fortunate thing about the difficult climb enables Tina to prolong the journey, feigning an injury to stall the inevitable. Newt knows why she does this but tries to keep it from circling his mind for fear of any rogue Legilimency.

Just as the first sign of a new day begins to creep up over the distant landscape, Grindelwald came to an abrupt stop. “Yes, I think here will do,” he decides, surveying the view of a small cluster of favelas they’d passed on their excursion upland.

The two men accompanying them press their wands harder into Newt and Tina’s back, ushering them closer to the edge of the cliff.

They look to Grindelwald.

He does not look back at them but begins. “It is time for you to prove where your allegiances lie.” He nods to the two followers who then retreat, standing a ways back. Newt would breathe a sigh of relief if it weren’t for the pressing matter at hand.

The time had come.

The older wizard gestures to the rundown, shabbiness of the shacks below. He sneers imperiously at them. “These derelict homes are quite an eyesore, don’t you think?”

Tina looks to the man, a challenge in her eyes. “What will destroying empty houses prove?” She feels Newt tug at her hand behind her, reining her inhibitions back in before they grow teeth.

Finally turning to look at the couple, Grindelwald smirks. “I never said they were empty.”

Sure enough, they’d been expecting as much, but it’s one thing to prepare for it and another to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, grinning malignantly.

“A thorough cleanse of plebeian muggles is just what this city needs,” he states, though they know he means the world at large.

Newt blinks and inhales, searching for the strength to endure the next moment without jinxing him off the cliff. He almost snaps when he sees him reach for Tina’s free hand.

Her training enables her to withstand the touch without jerking or pulling away. She is supposed to be honoured by his mere presence after all. She could not be seen rejecting it.

“Tina, dear. Why don’t you do the honours?”

She feels Newt move to take her place, but she turns to look at him, her eyes speaking volumes.

Panic floods Newt. His heart stops. He never wanted this. He’d joined Tina on this mission to ensure she never had to do something like this. What was the use in him being at her side if he couldn’t protect her? What was the point in all of this?

He stares back at her, gripped with the urge to disapparate as far from Rio as possible. As far from harm as he could get.

Tina had been through enough pain to last two lifetimes. To do this would torment her beyond all sanity. She deserves better.

He hopes she’ll reconsider his proposal from earlier, to abandon the mission, but he can see the firm resolution in the doe-like hue of her eyes.

She is decided.

 _I have to do this. It’s our duty._ He can hear her say it without opening her mouth.

He gives her hand one last squeeze before releasing his grip and stepping back.

She replaces his hand with her wand and adjusts it between her fingers.

Newt can feel Grindelwald’s pale eye fixed on him, waiting for a reaction.

He does not oblige.

Instead, he trains his eyes upon his wife and prepares himself for whatever may come next. He is ready to duel, should the need arise; prepared to grab her and disapparate or to simply take her place in this cruel task that had been thrust upon her.

But he hears the incantation “Incendio,” and the burst of flames that follows it before he can so much as brace himself for any of it. 

Despite their distance from the village, the explosion is so massive, they feel the heat against their faces, rivalling the Brazilian summer air. The towering flames seem only to rise higher, engulfing the tiny shacks in a roaring, raging carcass of destruction. The brittle sounds of snapping wood and tumbling stone is a cacophony to make one wish for the cry of a mandrake.

Tina does not react, but Newt can see her wand hand tremble ever so slightly, barely perceptible to the eye. She is close to breaking. He knows it. He needs to get her back immediately.

“Brava!” Rejoices Grindelwald, applauding Tina’s impressive spell work. “Beautiful. Just beautiful. Well done, Tina!” which, Newt hopes, translates to a pass of the test.

Blessedly, he decides they’ve had their fill of fun for the night and should return to the base to avoid detection. One of his men, trailing behind pulls out his wand, points it at the burning favela and starts to chant, “Agua-”

Grindelwald raises his hand for silence. The man drops his wand at his master’s request.

His marred face turns to the flames spreading down the mountainside and smiles. “Let them burn.”

...

The facade of calm falls the moment the door to their room closes.

Tina’s eyes are wide, unfocused and her skin is cold with shock. Newt ushers her towards the armchair, his arms wrapped protectively around her crumbling frame.

“Tina, love. It’s all right,” he coos, hoping to comfort her.

She takes one look at the small fire crackling away in the hearth and rushes to her feet, turning away from the taunting flames. Newt, catching this, whispers “Aguamenti” and a steady stream of water from the tip of his wand extinguishes them.

“That’s easy for you to say! You didn’t just burn a village to ash.” She struggles to catch her breath, the weight of the past hour tumbling down upon her.

Newt stands beside her, his hand rubbing her back as she bites at her nails. “They may have already been evacuated. Your Patronus will have got to Isaura in time.” He believes it and he hopes the conviction in his words is enough to help ease her worry. Queenie had come to them with news of the test a while before they had to leave. Tina had wasted no time conjuring her Patronus and sending it to Castleobruxo so that their liaison might be able to take action. It was her role in the mission, after all. Newt is confident they would be receiving confirmation any moment now.

“You don’t know that,” she counters, her chest heaving.

“And you don’t know that you’ve hurt anyone. Come now, let’s go down together,” he gestures towards the case. It always managed to lighten her spirits, Dougal especially.

“Newt,” she sighs, collapsing onto the bed, her legs giving way beneath her. “I can’t relax until I know for sure.”

Newt’s heart lurches at the sight of her, lost and broken. This was all his fault.

“If I’ve killed anyone...” her voice trails off into sobs and Newt is at her side in an instant.

“Oh, my darling,” he pulls her close to his chest, his hand in her hair and his lips to her forehead. “I am confident no one was hurt,” he tells her again. Even if she cannot yet believe it, it’s important she knows. This position takes him back to a short while after the incident in Paris, where Tina ultimately became so overwhelmed with the loss of her sister that she’d broken down in his front room. It had, in the days and weeks that followed, opened a door for the much-needed opportunity to communicate. It had been the beginning of their relationship and it started much the same way as their current circumstances, with Tina’s tears soaking the fabric of his collar and his gentle, unobtrusive presence wrapped around her.

“You know what the Ministry and MACUSA will say right?” Tina blurts between sobs and sniffs. “Oh well, there’s bound to be casualties along the way. They’re expendable.” She can hear the indifference now. 

Her crying gradually fades away and she is able to breathe somewhat steadily again. She knows, however, her nightmares tonight would be filled not with her own pain, but with the tortured screaming of burning villagers.

“This is too high a price.”

“Only we can pay it.” 

Suddenly, there's another presence in the room, replacing the fading orange glow from the candles with a brilliant blue, filtering in through the larger cracks in the stone wall.  
  
Isaura's Patronus had arrived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts?


	19. Chapter 19

A massive wave of relief carries Tina all the way into bed and to sleep. Newt swallows the questions he’d intended upon asking Isaura in favour of letting his wife find that much needed rest.

“Sleep well, love,” Newt kisses her temple as the light from the Patronus fades out of the room.

It had brought with it the news that the residents of the unfortunate village had indeed been evacuated in time. Tina had almost collapsed beneath the swift evaporation of guilt weighing her down. Newt, as always, had been close at hand to catch her, supporting her weight with strength enough for the both of them.

She’d fallen into another fit of sobs in his arms and he all but carried her into bed, calming her softly with gentle whispers that said “I told you so” in the best way possible. She fell asleep with a peaceful smile on her weary face.

Newt finds that the sight is enough for him to relax as well. Before he could join Tina in bed, however, he had hungry creatures to attend to.

He steps quietly down into the case and sets to work on the belated evening rounds, trying to calm the rowdy Demiguise and baby Hippogriff who seemed to want Tina’s company instead of his. “Hush now, Mummy’s sleeping,” he tells them mere moments before it falls on deaf ears. He now regrets leaving the case open ajar.

He chuckles, shaking his head when Pickett makes an appearance to scold Dougal who was clinging to the back of his tree. “Honestly, Pick. If it’s not Tina, it’s someone else. When will you learn to share?”

Instead of the customary high-pitched huff, he hears a decidedly stronger, more human voice behind him.

“Hey, Newt?”

The bucket of pellets he’d been holding falls from his hand and clambers to the floor, spilling the contents every which way.

“Queenie.”

Tina’s younger sister stood on the threshold to his hut, her posture tensed but her expression apologetic. “Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle ya, Newt.”

“That’s quite all right,” sighs Newt as he whips out his wand and points it down at the mess. The small chunks of dried meat and vegetables swirls into the air and back into the bucket, now turned upright. “What are you doing down here? Is Tina-” an all too familiar panic surges through him.

“She’s sound,” Queenie quickly interjects, sensing the concern enough to give her a headache. “Don’t worry.” In fact, she’d found her sister tucked comfortably in bed, dreaming of happier days. If it were not for one small, dark-eyed and freckled-faced child, Queenie might’ve mistaken it for a memory. The feelings of hope and loss that accompanied the image tugged at her heart and the knowledge that she’d once denied Tina the reality of what had now been reduced to dreams, is enough to sacrifice herself in their stead. If it meant her sister and Newt could have their child back, she would not hesitate.

She doesn’t need to look into Newt’s mind to know that his dreams are consumed by the same cautious yet inquisitive child. The bitterness in his next question affirms Queenie’s personal feelings on the matter.

“Did you want something?”

Queenie nods, her eyes falling to her feet, shuffling on the spot. “I know we gotta talk about some things…” The tension between them had been thick and uncomfortable and she’d expected no less. She deserved as much. Newt remained wary where her sister did not and Queenie could understand why. What she wishes to avoid is causing a rift in their marriage and if Newt was belligerent each time she appeared, Tina would eventually bear the brunt of their grievances with one another.

“Do we?” He asks, scoffing inwardly.

Queenie ignores it, listening to the gravel crackle beneath her high-heeled shoes that she now thinks better of wearing. “For Tina."

Newt hesitates for the space of a heartbeat before he nods. She is right. He could concede that at the very least. Anything for Tina. If he could make it so that life was a little easier for his wife, he’d bend over backwards to ensure it.

He may not trust Queenie yet, but he knows she, too, would do anything for Tina. That had never been in dispute.

**_Nine months ago..._ **

Tina was working late again, and it left Newt and Queenie to dine alone in the unbearably cramped and poor excuse that was a dining room.

“She works too much,” Queenie commented over the casserole dish she’d charmed to serve them healthy portions. “You oughta put your foot down.”

Newt shrugged, his face downcast and his shoulders slumped. He didn’t know why he’d sat down to eat - he had no appetite. It had gone the moment Tina stopped eating. “She doesn’t listen to me.”

“She’s carrying your baby, Newt,” sighed Queenie, placing her cutlery down against the plate. She was beginning to lose her desire to eat as well. The miserable atmosphere in the house of late could make a funfair out of an incurable maladies and curses ward. With the way Tina looked at Newt half the time, the grudge she bore too seemed incurable. The other half, she was too sick to look up from the lavatory basin.

Newt spent the majority of his time hidden away inside his case because he too often failed to start a dialogue with Tina. It was not for lack of trying, however, as he went to her most evenings to talk. If only she wasn’t so stubborn. If only he knew what to say.

“Apparently, I forfeit the right to an opinion the night she told me.” And it was no wonder. Queenie had initially been shocked the moment Tina’s memory of that night spilled out into her own. This reaction was so unlike Newt and yet, it made sense; it was understandable, if not reasonable. But Tina’s reaction, however aggressive, was to be expected and Newt was a fool not to.

Queenie’s sigh teeters in the edges of an exasperated groan. “She wants you to show you care. That you want this baby. I know you do; I see what you imagine when you look at her.” A little girl with deep auburn hair that curled at the ends and eyes dark enough to rival the reflection of fire in her mother’s. “Tell her you hope for a girl just like her.”

Giving up on the prospect of dinner altogether, Newt finally shoved at the plate in front of him and leaned back in his chair, pitiful and depressed. “She hates me.” He hates himself.

“She wishes she could.” Queenie counters. “I wish you could see her dreams.” Sharing the guest bedroom with her sister wasn’t like it used to be. Pregnant Tina was an entirely different breed of woman and she wasn’t pleasant company at night. Her dreams were even more difficult, and Queenie had been kept awake often enough to see them play out in her own mind.

When she wasn’t plagued by relentless fatal attacks from dark wizards, or Newt’s own death at the hands of the very same, Tina’s subconscious would grant her a fleeting reprieve in the form of a small, shy boy with a penchant for creature care.

These nights, when Tina eventually wakes due to the periodic discomfort in her back, Queenie would hold her as she wept. Her broken heart yearning after the man who had broken it.

**_Present Day..._ **

Of course, at the time, Queenie had yet to see the error of her master’s ways and her reappearance in their lives was merely a ploy to confirm Newt’s own subterfuge. Still, he can’t help but admit her concern for Tina and the baby had been undeniably genuine.

If he could trust anything, it would be this.

“But that’ll have to wait,” adds Queenie, stepping further into the case. The closer she moved towards him, the better he could see the troubled lines on her ordinarily serene features. His gaze must ask the question for him because she answers, “Isaura left me a message.”

“Why? Whatever for?” In afterthought, watching the Patronus leave through the door instead of the stone wall ought to have sparked some initial confusion in him. What if it had been seen by someone other than Queenie? This message must have been important enough to risk interception.

“She didn’t want Tina to know this.”

“Know what Queenie?” Newt demands, growing increasingly alarmed. His hands abandon his work on the Niffler’s nest.

Queenie finally meets his eyes and he sees regret in them. “Not every villager had been evacuated.”

A beat.

A distant roar from the recently disturbed Zouwu.

A gentle, concerned tug from the Demiguise.

“I’m sorry?” Surely, he had misheard.

“One man, elderly and on his death bed. He refused to leave.”

“So... Tina... he...” he could not speak the words but the strangled cries of a lonely old man, burning to death seeps into each crevice of his mind.

Queenie squeezes her eyes shut as if to dispel the sounds that are too loud to ignore.

“She can’t know,” Newt states, shaking his head vehemently. He could not help but imagine just what Tina might do were she to learn of this development. He perishes the very thought. The man was old and suffering, after all. And he knows Tina would sooner have turned her wand on herself before killing another innocent soul. But it was no use... if Tina knew, no amount of logic would balm the guilt.

Queenie nods in agreement. “She has enough to think about right now.”

Newt mimics the gesture, turning around, his hands rubbing at his waistcoat’s pockets. Then, suddenly, he stops. “What do you mean?” He asks his sister-in-law, having noticed the weight of her words and the burden of some heavy implication. It transports him back to the previous day in which Tina had been elusive as to what was bothering her. “Aside from the obvious, what is bothering Tina?”

Queenie coughs into the glass of water she’d conjured. “Oh... you know, same as you.” She laughs nervously.

“You’re an awful liar, Queenie.” He was getting tired of this. The sisters had been whispering something troubling about test potions only two days prior and the night before, Tina had implied he had some part in it. Surely, they ought to be upfront about it if it involves him. What on Earth was so difficult in speaking plainly?

“Excuse me?” She raises an eyebrow and crosses her arms, though she doesn’t necessarily disagree. She bites her tongue, trying to hold back further giggles and just a smidge of frustration as she listened to Newt try to puzzle it out. The man was hopeless. He was not unlike the rest of them.

“You and Tina... you’re hiding something. What is it?”

The blonde sighs, unfolding her arms and placing a hand on her brother-in-law’s shoulder. She looks past the imploring look in his eyes and replies. “Newt... I don’t think it’s my place, honey.”

...

In the past, Theseus thought he would’ve made the crossing from Britain to New York for the first time in his life under considerably different circumstances. Chasing down a wayward teenager and delivering a love note to a muggle would not have entered the realm of possibility mere years prior.

As it was, reconnecting with his peculiar younger brother meant becoming acquainted with a wider array of people than his socialite and ministry lifestyle could provide.

He wonders, as he steps out of the Woolworth Building and into the bustling city, what Leta would make of these unexpected, albeit exciting changes. He knows she would welcome the company of those well-travelled over the uppity ladies of leisure she’d grown up around.

What made him smile mere moments ago, brings a tight ache to his chest. His first time in New York City and his love was not here to share it with him.

Blinking away the tears and clearing his throat, Theseus sets his mind to the next task at hand. Kowalski’s Bakery.

One vacant alleyway and two apparition spots later and he finds himself at his destination. It was late afternoon, so he expects them to start closing up soon. All the better for him.

“Nice day, huh? What can I get for ya?” Greets the small, buoyant man behind the counter who was still sorting through the cash from the previous customer’s transaction.

Theseus’s eyes scan the various shelves and baskets, some almost empty after a successful business day, but clocks some particularly delicious looking pastries behind the proprietor. _When in New York_ “Oh, perhaps a pastry in the shape of my dear brother’s Dougal, If you please.”

Jacob’s head snaps up at the familiar accent. “Mister Scamander!” He beams over the counter. He'd met the man only twice before but they'd bonded somewhat following the incident in Paris through the loss of their respective loves. It was not quite the same, but it was the closest anyone had come to understanding Theseus's pain in the long, dark weeks that followed.

“Hello, Mister Kowalski,” Theseus grins in return, his mood sufficiently improved by the American man’s bright smile.

Said man stares at him in shock for a moment longer than he ought to before coming to. “Oh... um... Sammy, take over for a bit, huh?” He hands the keys to a teenage employee in the kitchen behind the main shop. “Thanks, pal.” He removes his apron and wipes his hands of flour and sugary residue before joining Theseus on the other side of the bakery. “So, what brings you here? Are Newt and Tina doing all right?”

They step out of the shop and back into the street. There weren’t many people around at this time of day so they could wake slowly along the pavement. “They’re doing as well as they can be,” he states confidently. “The situation is very delicate, I’m afraid.”

To his credit and despite his limited knowledge of the wizarding world, Jacob nods in understanding. The dark cloud over his countenances tells Theseus that the man is a true friend to his brother and sister-in-law, equally as concerned for their welfare as he was.

“I’ve come to see you. You see, I need a guide... one familiar with both the layout of New York and our world.” And Jacob Kowalski was best suited to the task.

“What for?”

“Credence is here. I need to find him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please share your thoughts!


	20. Chapter 20

They’d been walking for what seemed like half a day when Theseus was about to call it quits. “We ought to postpone the search until tomorrow. It’s getting late.” Though the lateness of the hour had been obscured by the sun having set before teatime. He loathed the latter part of the year in which days were shorter and nights were longer. Criminals found ample ground for misdemeanours in the dark. As such, his workload had tripled in the tail end of September as summer gave way to autumn.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t the moon high above the skyscrapers or the pitch blackness of the sky that surrounds it that told Theseus it was late. Rather it’s the emptiness of what he assumes are ordinarily packed streets. There was little sound to be heard save for the occasional screech of feral cats brawling and the hard shuffling of metal shutters being drawn.

The shorter man turns to him as they walk. “Ain’t you able to do that swish thing?”

Theseus’s brow furrows. “That swish thing?”

“Yeah, you know... one minute you’re in your bedroom and the next, on the other side of Manhattan,” he gestures vaguely with his arms outstretched.

The Brit nods, understanding before shaking his head with amusement. He would go as far to say it was Newt who had described a wizard’s most effective mode of transportation as a simple swishing of the body through the air.

“Apparate,” he rectifies.

“Sure.”

“I can but I have to know where I’m going.”

Understanding dawns on Jacob. Of course. His face tinges slightly with a rosy hue. “Right. I’m the guide. Gotcha.”

“As I was saying, we should start again tomorrow?” His body was yearning for a warm meal and long sleep.

Jacob stares at him incredulously. “What are you talking about? We’re only a few blocks from the hotel.”

“You said the same two hours ago.”

“This is New York, pal.,” Jacob chuckles, apparently at his companion’s expense.

Theseus huffs and relents. Whatever “two blocks” meant couldn’t possibly be more than a few minutes. He trudges in reluctantly.

Three quarters of an hour later, he learns it was not, in fact, a few minutes. The American measure of distance is decidedly different than that of the British, and he is exhausted.

He glances over at the muggle, arguably less physically fit than himself, unfazed by the excursion. How, Theseus could not fathom, his mind still lagging behind, perplexed by the extensive jungle that is New York City. Of course, in terms of overall size, London is considerably larger than the Big Apple. But much of the British capitol is quietly residential whereas New York is largely urbanised and imposing. It was quite the culture shock for the Auror as he made his way through the never-ending streets.

Eventually, those two blocks had finally led to the bed and breakfast Credence had checked into, according to sources at MACUSA. It was a non-magical establishment, and this is likely why the boy had chosen it. This and the fact he himself was more familiar with muggle New York than it’s hidden magical underbelly. This is why Jacob had been the best candidate for the job in tracking him down.

“This is it?” He asks the baker who stood staring at the seemingly run-down establishment with his hands in his jacket pockets.

Jacob nods. “If the kid was here, they’ll tell us.”

Theseus mimics the gesture and starts for the staircase leading up to the brownstone. Jacob reaches out and taps his arm.

“For a price,” he adds.

Theseus blinks. “They’ll expect to be paid for information?” Naturally, with a black book of informants throughout the British Isles, he is not unaccustomed to bribery. But he did not expect the concept to extend to the non-magical world as well. It’s a foolish notion, really. Humans will be humans, after all.

Jacob shrugs. “This is America.”

“I’m beginning to understand why my brother isn’t too fond of it.”

“But he came back anyway,” Jacob notes with a hint of fondness.

“For an American. Not for her country,” counters Theseus pointedly.

Jacob smiles warmly, thinking of his friends and the love he’d watched blossom between them. He misses them more the longer he spends in Theseus’s company.

The long-since oiled door squeaks as he pushes it open, a bell from above the threshold signals their entry and awakens a dreary looking landlord, perched in the corner of the shabby foyer in an even shabbier armchair.

“No vacancy!” He announces louder than the late hour would allow.

Jacob glances around, taking in the damp walls upon which wallpaper was hanging off in several spots, the rusted iron on radiators and the dim bulbs in shredded lampshades. All gave off quite the atmosphere and it’s not one that would imply the hotel was full to the rafters. No vacancy? _Please_ , he scoffs to himself. As a business-owner himself, he’d earned the right to judge how welcoming another’s business was.

This was not.

Theseus seemed less concerned about the state of the building and more so with his quarry. “We don’t want a room. We want to visit one of your guests.”

The man groans and pushes himself up and out of the chair, staggering with the effort. The empty bottles at his feet clatter against the toes of his weather-worn brogues.

“Name,” he demands, slamming the front cover of the equally worn logbook against the reception desk.

“Credence Barebone.” It’s likely he’d have abandoned this surname by disgust in association, but it’s as good a start as any.

The proprietor grumbles, shaking his head after a brief scan of the check-in log.

“Credence Lestrange?” Also worth a try.

Another mumble. No joy.

Theseus sighs, losing hope fast. “Any guest at all with that first name?” If the boy was smart, he wouldn’t have used it at all, but they had little else to go on.

“Ain’t never met no one with that name, kid.”

“Are you quite certain? He’s average height, dark, pale and-” To be true, he’d only seen the boy in person twice. The first time in the Parisian catacombs, his face obscured by the blue flames. The second earlier in the year in which he’d held him at wand-point as his sister-in-law lay bleeding on the floor. Both times left much to the imagination aided by faulty memories, but it would have to be enough.

“In need of a sandwich,” adds Jacob with a shrug and a wince.

The eldest of the three men considers the image for a moment. “Quiet? Bad posture? Don’t look you in the eye?”

“That’s the one!” Theseus exclaims with more glee than the circumstances called for.

“Yeah, he was here. Name was Aurelius. Sounds made up to me.”

“Was?”

He nods, turning the book so as to allow them to read the status of one guest named Aurelius D. “Checked out. About an hour ago. Left a damn crack in the wall the size of a pitcher’s mound. No clue how he managed that. Musta been going at it with a jackhammer.”

Theseus and Jacob share a dark, knowing look that spoke volumes.

“Thank you for all your help.”

The landlord chortles but the splutter in his mouth says it’s only half-hearted. “Thanks don’t pay. Cough up.” His hand is the next to appear, empty but waiting.

“First, did he say where he was headed?”

“Cash,” the man insists greedily, twitching his yellow-tipped fingers.

With a roll of his eyes, Theseus reaches into his pocket for some coins. Thankfully, Jacob is alert enough to halt the action and offer up some of his own muggle money instead. He would have to thank him for that later.

The man examines each coin individually before he answers. “Red hook or somethin.”

“Red hook?”

“Shipyards,” Jacob confirms.

Once they’ve stepped back out into the street, he turns to the taller man and asks, “you know the way?”

Theseus adjusts his jacket and holds out his arm for Jacob to take. “Water shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

A sharp tug into the air sends them on their way.

...

In spite of the exhaustion riddling his body, Newt doesn’t join Tina in bed once he completed the feeding rounds. Instead, he settles himself in the armchair by the cold fireplace and allows Queenie’s words to replay in his mind.

What did she know that only Tina could tell him? And was it the reason she’d eavesdropped on Grindelwald in a desperate attempt to gain information fast? What had shaken her so much that she had been willing to risk her own life if it meant they could return home sooner? And why was he now left with these mind-numbing questions? Why hadn’t she told him already?

He thinks back, trying to pinpoint the exact moment she’d started acting so strangely. It hadn’t been when they arrived at the mountain fortress, nor when she’d reunited with Queenie. They’d reconciled afterwards with regards to her past with Graves and had since agreed to work on their communication.

“So much for that,” he mumbles to himself in reproach of being left in the dark once more.

Tina stirs in response to the noise but does not wake. Newt leans forward in the chair to look around at her in the bed. Her bare shoulders hunch up towards her jaw, lip quivering slightly. Sensing her need, Newt ignites the kindling in the hearth and casts a temporary warming charm around the bed to keep her comfortable until the fire gained enough momentum.

Days in Rio were stiflingly humid, but once the sun disappeared, cold air swept across the mountains, whistling in through cracks in the stone, casting a bitter chill in the air around them.

Sleeping in the nude against one another had proved to be the best method in tackling the night time chill. Shared body warmth had been an adequate substitute for a roaring fire.

It’s then, with thoughts of Tina’s body, he remembers their stolen moment of relief a few nights prior. When she’d come undone beneath him and he allowed himself to revel in the sheer bliss of it all.

Concern churns in his gut. Had he been too forward? Had he hurt her? Had she not been ready?

“Newt?” Comes the small voice from the deep chasm of the overlarge bed.

Newt’s eyes meet Tina’s as she rubs the sleep away from them. He swallows down the lump in his throat to greet her. “I’m here, love. How’d you sleep?”

Tina stretches out her arms as she sits up, uncoiling the kinks at her spine. “Not bad considering.” She pushes the covers down her legs and notices that Newt’s side of the bed was cold to the touch. “Didn’t you sleep?” She asks him.

“I might’ve dozed off here and there.” It was a lie and she probably knew it.

Her sigh confirms as much. “You need to rest, Newt.”

Newt nods, conceding that of course she is right. “It’s difficult.” His eyes follow her as she pushes herself up and out of bed. He’d quite forgotten she’d stolen one of his shirts to wear before collapsing into bed. He wishes it was a better time to oblige the ache in his trousers. “There is much on my mind.”

“I know,” agrees Tina, rubbing are her arms against the cold the fire could not dispel.

Nor could it extinguish their suffocating ruminations - What Grindelwald has planned next for them, how they are going to get the vital information they’d traveled across the world for, who had he been talking to in hushed whispers, who had been in their room that night and where was Credence.

Silence.

Tina curves around the chair to better see her husband whose expression looked miles away. “What is it, Newt?”

“It’s nothing,” he smiles meekly but doesn’t look at her, stare fixed on the flames before him.

Pursing her lips, Tina reaches out and lifts his arm, settling herself into his lap, her long, bare legs astride his hips. She places her hands on his chest and searches for his eyes, urging them to return her gaze. “Tell me.”

It was a bold move for her, but it was one she had used before. He always seemed to like it, and by the instinctive drifting of his hands towards her waist, now was no exception. She feels his fingers knead into the muscles beneath her ribcage and her own fingertips respond in kind, seeking his heartbeat to observe how it hastened in her presence, in her intimate proximity. Her free hand reaches up, pushing his curled fringe from his face. She wants to see him.

Newt clears his throat and meets her eyes. Communication. “You’ve been acting strangely ever since we... were intimate.” He feels her shift slightly against his hands. He squeezes lightly, comfortingly, willing her not to hide away from him. He needs to see her reaction for what he asks next. “Did I hurt you, Tina? Did you not like it? I know it was the first real time since... I would understand.”

Tina blinks, and inhales deeply, her eyes drifting to the buttons on Newt’s shirt. “It was beautiful,” she whispers loud enough for him to hear. She had dreaded this conversation but she couldn’t bear for him to think he’d hurt her, that she didn’t want him. It was all she’d wanted for a very long time.

“Then what is it? What’s the matter?”

The desperation and worry in his voice cuts into Tina’s heart like a knife through butter - clean but direct. To tell him, to voice it out loud would be to realise the gravity of it, to shift the focus of their mission in the space of a heartbeat. The weight of it would come crashing down upon them.

But, she considers, at least she wouldn’t have to carry it alone.

Another deep intake of breath and a large gulp later, Tina’s eyes focus in on Newt’s once more.

“We weren’t safe, Newt. We didn’t think about the consequences.” Once the words are out of her mouth, an exhale follows it. Relief, however, waits for his reaction.

It does not come.

“Newt?” She nudges her weight against him. His eyes were looking at her face but the vacant gaze in them tells Tina he isn’t really seeing her. “Please say something.”

He opens his mouth to do so but nothing escapes.

Tina had feared this too. For all his conviction and the promise that he regretted how he had reacted the first time, she was beginning to feel that familiar turn of agony deep in her heart, still tender from the pain he’d caused almost a year ago.

She starts to move off of him when his grip on her hips tightens.

“Stay,” he croaks. “Please.”

Tina doesn’t say anything, but she settles back down on his lap, though this time she is guarded, wary.

It all made sense now. The elusiveness, the secrecy, the hushed whispers, the sudden need to reach safety. “I’m an absolute fool, Tina.” His hands move from her sides to hold her face. “I’m so sorry.” What an insensitive, ignorant idiot he had been. Guilt at having been cross with her for eavesdropping on Grindelwald overwhelms him. He would not hesitate to do the same now, knowing what he now knows. Her recklessness now made all the sense in the world, because his just got a whole lot bigger.

His heart simultaneously leaps and constricts at the thought. “Have you taken a potion?” He asks her, his hands now cupping her elbows.

Tina shakes her head. “It’s too soon. I don’t think it would be effective just yet.”

“I know a spell. I use it on the creatures whenever I suspect they’re expecting. It’s detected an embryo as early as three days,” he explains, hopeful that she’ll be receptive to the idea. There was no sense in waiting.

The frown of her mouth makes him nervous. “I’m not one of your creatures, Newt.”

His hands move to rub her back reassuringly, trying not to hike the hem up any higher. He could not afford to get distracted. “I know, love. I’m sorry, it’s just... we need to know.”

Tina nods. If they could know now, they had to try. “I know you’re right. It’s just...”

“Yes?”

“I’m scared.”

Newt’s gaze softens and he pulls her towards his chest, kissing her neck as she leans into him. The gentle hand at her back and the light breath on her skin tells her that he’s scared too, but that he would be there this time. He would not leave her.

“We can’t abandon the mission but what if... what if I am?” She could not say the word, it felt bitter, somehow heavy on her tongue, forbidden. “I don’t think I can survive losing another.”

“I will not let that happen.” He squeezes her tighter, holding steadfast to the conviction in his words.

“Newt-”

“Are you ready to try the spell?” He interrupts, unwilling to hear anything else on the matter. His promise had been made and he intends upon keeping it.

“I guess,” she relents. She had no energy to fight a losing battle.

Newt ushers Tina over to the bed, this spell best performed with the subject laying down and relaxed. Once comfortable, she sets to work on the buttons of Newt’s shirt, baring her skin to the slowly warming air. Newt sits by her legs and notes the trembling of her hands. He reaches out to steady them, giving her a pointed look and a gentle smile.

Tina’s hands drop to her sides and allows Newt to unbutton the rest of the shirt. Whilst still maintaining her modesty, he pulls the two flaps to each side, revealing her toned abdomen.

“What will happen?” Tina asks, trying to slow her heart rate. It was fit to bursting out of her chest. She could feel it in her throat.

Newt pulls out his wand from the belt loop in his trousers. “If there’s anything to know, you’ll know it when you see it.”

Tina nods, closing her eyes.

“Breathe, darling. I’ve got you.” One of the virtues he prided himself in was the ability to remain calm in stressful situations. This was most certainly one of them, and his wife needed him to be strong for the both of them. The three of them?

Swallowing what measure of apprehension he felt, Newt places a gentle, steady hand on her abdomen, twisting his wrist to point the tip of his wand in the same direction.

The incantation trickles from his tongue but a sharp knock at the door silences it.

Tina groans. “Not now...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on twitter: bartagnanz


	21. Chapter 21

Tina bolts upright as the door starts to open, crossing the sides of Newt’s shirt over her chest to preserve some sense of modesty. Newt redirects his wand from her belly to the doorway, pointed at their visitor, ready to strike.

“Bonjo-” begins the French woman Rosier on the threshold, stopping short at the sight on the bed. “Celebrating?” She smirks, arms crossed over her chest, brow lifted in curiosity. Her eyes glinted with a small measure of appreciation as they drift towards Tina’s long, shapely legs. Feeling the lewd gaze upon her, Tina pulls the hem of the shirt down and her legs up to her chest.

Newt notices her discomfort and conjures a blanket to further shield her from the sight of this unworthy interloper. “Do you mind?” He accuses, miffed she’d entered their room at all, much less during a private moment. It wouldn’t surprise him if she were the one who had watched them that night. It makes his gut twist and his stomach churn to think someone had watched them in an intimate embrace reserved only for husband and wife. The way she looked; the way she leered at Tina urges a deep, primal protective need inside him and he knows, were he to act upon it, she wouldn’t appreciate it.

He refrains and settles for placing himself between the two women instead. “What do you want?” He asks, heedless of his tone.

Finally, Vinda’s eyes leave Tina and turn to sneer at Newt. “Monsieur Grindelwald has come to a decision regarding your joining the Alliance.”

Movement behind him tells Newt that Tina had left the sanctuary of the bed. Sure enough, she appears at his side, the blanket clutched tightly to her chest. “And?” The anxiety in her voice is barely audible but Newt can hear the quiver of her breath.

“You will be taken to himself when he is ready to receive you,” Vinda explains. “Until then, you will make yourselves presentable.” She pulls out her wand from her wide sleeve and two sets of scarlet robes fly into the room and hover before them, suspended in mid air. “You will wear these.”

Newt reaches out to grab his, inspecting them closely. “Why would we have to wear these?” It seemed somewhat melodramatic to dress so particularly.

Vinda turns from having started to leave, sighing with impatience. “You will see.” The door echoes shut behind her, leaving Newt and Tina alone once more.

“These are ridiculous,” exclaims Newt, turning his nose up at the sickly red hue that seemed far too like blood to be woven into any sort of fabric.

“It’s just a robe, Newt. Put it on.” Tina had already done so, her expression demure and far away.

Newt approaches her, his hand on her back between her shoulder blades. “She made you uncomfortable.”

Tina shrugs. She’d endured worse and the prospect of wearing a silly robe was less of an inconvenience for her than it seemed to be for Newt. In her mind, it bodes well. Grindelwald had been pleased with how she’d handled the task, so this development could only mean a positive decision had been made. Newt should be relieved. After all, they had little else to rejoice in - the maybe-baby consumed her to the point this success felt smaller than it actually was. The added danger would diminish any progress they made in their mission, however small to start.

Newt is puzzled by Tina having dressed so quickly before they had the chance to complete the charm. “Tina, we still have to-“

“It can wait,” she answers quickly.

“But-“

Tina’s sigh silences whatever words Newt planned on saying next. “I don’t want to know right now. I can’t face it. Not at the moment.” She’d spent much of her thirty years walking on the wire and waiting for the other shoe to drop. Peace, however fleeting, had come to feel like its own kind of danger and no matter how pleased Grindelwald appeared to be, she would not drop her guard.

“All right,” relents Newt, watching his breath fog in the frigid mountain air. He understands her reluctance. The memory of her in a pool of her own blood and the burn of her ire that followed rises to the surface, but he pushes it away, fearful of what else might be unleashed should he linger upon it for too long. Though, he goes onto add, “I would feel better knowing though, considering what we might be walking into.” He doesn’t want to push her but it’s important.

Despite the knot in her neck, Tina nods, she could concede that he was right. “Then let’s just be careful... just in case.”

Adjusting the robe around his shoulders, Newt mimics the nod. “Just in case.” His eyes drift off toward the now barren fire, widening as the gravity of the situation tumbles down upon him like an overdue avalanche, teetered on the edge for so long. “Merlin’s beard! What if you are?!”

“Newt, please...” it’s more of a defeated sigh than an exasperated groan. She didn’t have the energy for the latter and he certainly didn’t deserve it.

“I’m sorry, love it’s just...”

“We have to focus,” Tina reminds him.

A knock comes before he has the chance.

“Come,” a voice demands in the distance. It’s Rosier again, struggling with patience as Abernathy looks on behind her, stern-faced. They’re dressed in robes, identical save for the colour, of which theirs were as black as the magic they invoke.

It’s comical, really. How one moment can be life and the next, death, in all its awful inevitability. Tina takes the lead and joins the two acolytes at the threshold, stepping out into the dank corridor and it’s there, as Newt closes their bedroom door behind him, that her body feels everything. The laboured trek above the city, bloodshot eyes from the smoke, Grindelwald’s menacing praise upon her, his cold hand against her own.

The memory of it is quickly replaced by the reality of her husband’s fingers intertwining with hers. He smiles softly, earnest and unafraid, eyeing her sullen expression. The scars circling their wrists sting at the contact, but it’s not painful anymore. It’s a kiss against the skin, a gentle reminder that they’re in it together. If her anxieties could be quelled, this gesture would’ve worked. She smiles back at him in spite of these worries, determined to holdfast to what little strength her tired and aching body would allow.

After a long and winding walk toward the main hall, they come to a stop outside the largest double doors in the fortress. Abernathy and Vinda enter, gesturing for the couple to wait outside. It’s much like their first night there, before they’d met with Grindelwald. Whilst the nerves inside them hummed for a different reason altogether, they felt much the same way as they’d done that evening. During the journey to Rio, the effort to get to where they are now, they’d been able to forget the threat at large. But now, in this calm following the storm, their hearts race and the peril looms, the hum of fear, the evil they’d seen. What they’d lost; what they might have yet to lose.

Newt stares back at Tina and recognises the haunted expression on her face as though it were his own. He feels her squeeze his hand, nudging his shoulder. “We can do this.” It’s another echo of that night and neither is sure who had given voice to the words this time. It’s enough to ease them into the next moment, which comes sooner than expected.

It’s the sound of hurried steps on the stone floor, approaching from around the next corridor.

“Queenie...” Tina breathes before she sees her appear. That perky, wired gait in high-heels is too conspicuous not to recognise

“Teen! Newt!” She starts breathlessly, leaning against the wall for support.

The couple gape at her, waiting for her words to find their voice.

“I overheard Grindelwald,” she inhales another deep, laboured breath. “He was talking to someone, a woman, in his quarters.”

“That must be the same voice I heard!” Tina explains, turning to face Newt. The tone of vindication is not lost on him. “What did you hear?” She presses eagerly.

Queenie steps closer, her gaze momentarily vacant as she listens for any approaching thoughts. Satisfied they are alone, she swallows. “He told her to go to New York to find Credence. To tell him that she’s a friend of Newt and that he wants to help him.”

Their hearts plummet to their stomachs. “He won’t hesitate to trust her. He knows Newt would never hurt him.” Tina’s panicked voice is rivalled only by Newt’s sweaty palms.

Queenie nods, biting her lip. Her sister turns to her husband. “You have to write to your brother, Newt. Tell him to hurry - he’s not the only one looking for Credence.”

Newt looks wide-eyed between the two sisters, unsure what to say in the midst of everything. It was all happening so fast. Tina razing a village to the ground, discovering there had in fact been a causality and deciding to keep it from her. All before he’d confronted her about recent behaviour, being knocked to the ground by what had caused it and now her reluctance to confirm their suspicions. All this in time for Grindelwald’s final decision regarding their fate, waiting beyond the doors to their left.

It was all proving to be far too much to bear and he doesn’t know how he’ll be able to write to Theseus with a level-head and steady hand.

Fortunately for him, Queenie finally takes notice of their attire. “Oh...” realisation clouds over her eyes. “You’ve been accepted.”

If it were not for the slight shadow on her bright features, her words would’ve comforted them. “You went through this?” Tina asks, gestures to their robes and the spectacle of it all.

Queenie shakes her head. Grindelwald considered her too much of an asset that he’d forgone any ceremonial initiation. This, Newt and Tina understood.

“But I have witnessed it once, and...” she trails off, her eyes falling.

“And what, Queenie?”

“Well... it’s a bloodletting ceremony,” she explains. “He thinks it purifies the body of indecision and doubt.”

Tina rolls her eyes. “Naturally. How much does he expect to drain?”

Newt and Queenie share a pointed look. Newt too had been witness to these dark rituals and he understood her apprehension to answer Tina at once. The brunette in question had noticed and was starting to become annoyed.

“Well?” She demands.

“Not everyone survives the process.”

“Tina,” Newt begins, drawing her attention to him by taking both her hands in his. “It’s not too late. We’re all here, we know where to find Credence. We can leave now.”

The skin between her eyebrows creases as she looks back at her husband, switching to her sister whose expression told her she was not opposed to her brother-in-law’s plan. Had they both been at the fire whisky?

“And what then? We wait until he comes for us? We can’t run forever, and we can’t take him down out there. We tried that already, for years. Where did it get us?” Her voice is low but measured, steady and she won’t say where because the guilt both of them feel is still much too raw to touch. “Our best chance is right here, right through those doors.”

And she is right, Newt decides. He tried to run, to remain on the outskirts of culpability, of having to choose a side. But meeting Tina, watching his brother in Paris, seeing them both fight tooth and nail to make the world better for all those living, magical and non-magical. The world was bigger than that of his case, more than creatures and jungles, and humans had proven to be worthy of coexistence. He’d chosen his side and he’d vowed to protect those there with him. He’d chosen to join Tina on this mission, and he would remain by her side until she was ready to run with him.

He nods finally and at last. His introspection having lulled into silence. “We stay.”

Queenie does not open her mouth to object, likely having heard the cycle of musings in Newt’s head. If she disagreed, she won’t voice it. She is still trying to regain her sister’s trust and to pressure her into something would be a step in the wrong direction.

“I’ll put healing potions in your room. You’ll need to replenish what he takes from you. Especially you, Teen.” She says, eyeing her sister’s middle.

“I’ve had worse,” she dismisses the concerns, unaware just what the implication of her words had made her husband and sister feel, reminded instantly of that fateful night at the ministry all those months ago. Newt closes his eyes and the memory is waiting there.

“Ready?” They hear a voice in the crack of the now open door. It’s Abernathy, squinting against the glare in the hallway. The hall must somehow be more dimly lit than the gloomy corridors connecting each room to the next.

Queenie disappears from sight. Her presence was not expected, and she refuses to watch her sister bleed again if she could help it.

This left Newt and Tina to separate, their hands going cold at the loss of contact. They nod to the smaller man who turns, the doors opening wide behind him.

They follow slowly, crossing the frame of the door to find two uniform lines of wizards, parallel to one another in the impossibly darker room, lit only by a small altar of candles by the large window. Each person in the room was cloaked and hooded, their faces hidden by the shadow cast by the black material and the darkness engulfing them. They seem to disappear into it, becoming one with it.

_Fitting_ , Newt muses. It’s what they’re here for after all.

The scarlet hue of his and Tina’s robes stick out like poppies in a barren wasteland.

“Welcome!” Booms Grindelwald’s voice by the window. His robe, neither red nor black, was brighter than the feeble glow of the candles behind him. The white of the material blends with the sickly pale complexion of the man who wore it.

If Tina was more reckless and quicker to mockery, she’d jeer at him for this disastrous fashion faux pas that did little for his already grim appearance. Fortunately for her own sake and Newt’s, she knew when to hold her tongue.

The same could not be said for Abernathy who chose the moment they approached the altar to announce, “They were speaking in hushed voices out there.”

Tina glares at him, not unlike the times he’d tried to throw her under the bus whilst still working at MACUSA.

Grindelwald ignores him, a small but forceful wave of his hand dismisses the imbecile to join the others in line. Just where he preferred them.

“Join me, my friends,” he ushers Newt and Tina closer, distracting them with the conjuring of a small ornate chest whilst two of his more physically imposing followers creep up behind them, pushing down on their shoulders and to their knees.

Newt does not resist, but he can feel Tina push up against them, defiant to the last.

The two men retreat once Tina complies and they turn their attention back to Grindelwald who stood menacingly before them. His welcoming demeanour does little to subdue the challenge in his mismatched eyes.

“You have proven yourselves loyal to the cause. It is time for your final test.”

Test?

They had not been expecting that.

They watch closely as he removes his wand from the inside sleeve of his robe. It’s then he presses the tip against the small box, unlocking its contents.

He turns to the couple. “Lift your sleeves, please.”

They share a look of confusion but obey his order all the same, pushing up the sleeve of the arms void of the Unbreakable Vow scars. What was another to add to the collection?

Satisfied, he turns back to the box, admiring whatever lay within with unmatched reverence. “This relic has been passed from family to family for generations. It was forged by a pure-blooded witch and only pure bloods have ever wielded it.” With his dark eye fixed on the object, the unnatural iris finds Tina. “You are no pureblood, my dear.” This statement is followed by venomous hisses throughput the room, silenced immediately by their master. “But you see, my brothers... her blood may be tainted, but her heart is as loyal to our quest for freedom as any of you.” Tina knew that his believing this was merely a result of her ability to fool him and not, in fact, a reality. She is good and pure and just. She is nothing like them.

“She burned a muggle village to rubble without a moment’s thought,” the pride in his voice is not easily mistaken. “Of course, my sources told me that the enemy received information prior to our excursion and was able to evacuate the worthless scum in time.”

He knows.

How does he know? How _much_ does he know?

Newt and Tina do not react. Their faces as impassive as ever. He could not suspect them, not now, not when they are so close.

He turns his back to them after a moments silence, placing the box on the windowsill, retrieving what lay inside.

With his back still to them, he continues, “but not all were so lucky...”

Newt swallows hard, willing Tina to maintain her composure.

She wasn’t supposed to find out. Not like this.

His heart pounds in his chest, wondering if her's had stopped.

“An old man, close to death but with life yet to say goodbye to his loved ones... denied to him by our new sister.” He holds his hands out before Tina, beaming maliciously.

Her dark eyes meet his and she gives away nothing. The fury, heartache and confusion within her trapped inside, clamouring to be free.

She could not feel.

She is numb. In shock.

Grindelwald seems to notice she had not noticed the dagger in his hand. “Your final test.” He hands it to Newt, who too is struggling to keep a firm grasp on his emotions. He hopes the blond man does not see his hand tremble as he brings the blade to his wrist.

A sharp but calm “No” stops him. “Each other.”

If Newt didn’t hesitate before, he did now. He had caused Tina enough pain. He could not, would not harm her.

Tina seemed to have other ideas because she turns on her knees to face him, holding her arm out to him. Her eyes tell him nothing except to do it, to get it done. She needs to get out of there and away from prying eyes as soon as possible. He could see she was close to breaking. He needed to get her out of there.

With this decided, his free hand curves around hers, lifting the blade closer to her skin. If he was careful and cut with the lightest touch, the wound would be shallow enough that she would not be left with a scar, a constant reminder of what her husband had done.

Tina pushes against his hand, compelling him to hurry up.

Newt silences his brain and stops thinking as he lowers the blade and presses ever so slightly against her skin.

He feels it tear apart and the rush of thick, oozing blood swells against the length of the dagger. It’s enough to lift it away.

Despite the lump in his throat and the sickly feeling in his stomach, he cannot tear his eyes away from Tina’s arm. From what he’d done.

Was he no better than those around them?

As he ponders, Tina takes the dagger from his hand and mimics his action only much quicker, eager to get it over with. The sting shocks him out of his own rumination, his eyes moving from her arm to his own, watching their blood pool at their knees.

“Beautiful,” comments the grinning Grindelwald as he raises his arms towards the others who begin to chant in some language Tina is not familiar with. He waves his hands in triangular motions in a conductor-like fashion, leading the rise and fall of his dark arrangement.

Their is no musical quality to it, none that can be heard with their human ears, at least. The blood around them, however, begins to quake against the stone, dancing to the rhythm of the words.

Tina and Newt remain as still as possible, completely unsure what was happening. They’d never heard of this magic before, nor did they know to what end Grindelwald was issuing his wordless commands. Newt does not recall this ever taking place in the ceremonies he’d partaken in before.

This is different. It is new magic.

Or very, very old...

Seconds seem to bleed into minutes when finally, two solitary drops begin to rise above the rest, up into the air above their heads.

The chanting stops and with it, the blood below them stills.

The two above remain suspended in mid-air, static and fixed by some invisible force.

All eyes in the hall are fixed upon them and for the longest time, it seems they would simply drop to the floor with the rest. But they hold their spherical form and begin to orbit around one another like planets.

They swirl slowly at first, gaining in speed until eventually, they become one. And, just as quickly as they joined, they fade and disappear into the air.

“You are one,” announces Grindelwald.

“We are one!” The dark phantoms surrounding them confirm, drawing nearer and nearer still to the couple.

They’re uncertain whether it’s the darkness of the robes around them or the blood loss that begins to blur their vision, rendering their senses useless until they feel themselves falling and everything goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back from what we can label a maternity leave! Writing this story is therapy for me and its so good to be back at it. I really hope much of my readership has been patient and are now willing to continue reading my story. Please let me know below :)


	22. Chapter 22

**_Eleven months ago_ **

Tina hadn’t heard from Newt in two months. Neither she nor his brother had received the expected owl in that same time, and she was starting to worry. Granted they’d gone far longer without word from him, but the last time she’d been with him was just before the New Year. Ordinarily he would’ve sent word as soon as he reached his destination, but as the days bled into weeks, it became clear they’d been waiting for a letter that had never been sent.

Tina considered writing him one herself and posting it to an inn near Nurmengard in the hopes that he’d go looking there.

She’d thought long and hard, weighing the risk, determining whether it was worth it.

Theseus flat out refused to sanction it and whilst he knew her well enough to know she wasn’t particularly mindful of the rules, he implored to her on a more personal level.

It worked.

She’d written the letter, but never sent it.

The parchment had been littered with phrases and pleas that followed a similar formula.

Are you safe?

Please write. Let us know.

I love you.

I miss you.

I’m pregnant.

That last post-script had been the most difficult to fight. It was chiefly the reason she’d planned on sending the letter in the first place.

After leaving St Mungo’s the previous evening, she’d disapparated straight home to set quill to ink, to let him know, to lift the weight from her heavy heart. She didn’t know how much longer Newt would be gone and the prospect of carrying their secret alone for much longer had her sealing the envelope with hot wax before thinking better of it.

“Hurry home, Newt,” she exhaled into the wash basin the next morning. “I can’t do this without you.”

**_Present day...._ **

Tina wakes to the gentle voice of her younger sister and the sensation of her skin sewing itself back together. The remnants of the dream filter into consciousness with her until she’s lucid enough to notice her hand had drifted towards her abdomen.

She removes it quickly, hoping Queenie hasn’t noticed.

 _I saw what you dreamt_ , the Legilimens tells her.

Tina glares at her, words and thoughts rendered moot. She knows better than to poke around in people’s heads. But all is forgiven the moment she looks down at her arm, once mutilated by Grindelwald’s aged dagger, now perfectly healed with Dittany and some healing charms.

Laying there, her sister at her side, tending to her wounds, is an image she’d so often experienced in the past. Since becoming an Auror, Queenie had inadvertently become the resident healer. Tina had never been the most graceful but she sure as hell was the most reckless. It was down to luck that Queenie had excelled in potions whilst at school.

“It’s a good thing I paid attention in class, if only to patch my sister up after work every night,” Queenie muses with a tone of amusement mixed with exasperation, such was how Tina made her feel.

Tina rolls her eyes, pushing her weight onto her elbows to sit up. “It wasn’t every night, stop exaggerating.”

The blonde sighs, trying to push Tina back down against the pillows. “You need to rest. You both do.”

It’s then that Tina notices Newt, sleeping fitfully on the other side of the bed. Whilst he slept on his side, his back to the sisters, it was clear by the tussle of the bedclothes beneath him and the heat radiating from his form that he was not comfortable.

Tina sits upright instantly, turning towards her husband. “Queenie, he’s burning up,” she notes urgently, her hand pressed to his cheek. His hair clings to his forehead, drenched with sweat. She conjures a damp washcloth and begins wiping his brow as she knelt at his back.

Queenie had moved around the bed to assess her brother-in-law’s condition. If truth be told, Tina was her sister and she doubts very much that Newt would hold tending to those wounds first against her. Tina, on the other hand... well... the frustration rolling off her in waves and the words “you should’ve left me till last,” paints a different picture altogether.

She ignores it, digging into her apron for some remedy for Newt’s dangerously high fever. He was starting to shiver in response to Tina’s touch.

“Hurry!” She insists, holding her husband with a gentle grasp. She recalls only once before in which she’d been concerned for Newt’s health.

**_Two years ago..._ **

It happened too fast to register, too quickly for the human eye to catch. It was over in a blink, a gasp, a lurch in the heart.

The Zouwu’s talons had responded for her when Dougal reappeared when she’d least expected it.

It was a palaver that started in the skittish creature getting spooked and Newt’s chest gushing with blood.

The claw marks were deep, and they’d run low on Dittany with no opportunity to restock, stranded in the middle of the Atlantic on an ocean liner. The incident occurred merely hours into their voyage and as such, it was too late to turn back and too early to apparate to their destination. It was unlikely Newt would appear on the other end without a splinching anyway.

So, what plans they had to relax and catch up on the latest manuscript were replaced with Tina nursing Newt back to health amidst his constant assurances that he was “quite all right” and that he’d “suffered worse”. Neither proved to be a comfort to Tina who spent the majority of their voyage at his bedside, forgoing the promise of sleep.

The fever that wracked his body was violent and seemingly relentless. He’d developed blotches over his arms from his system attempting to fight the infection that had set in on the second day.

He’d then succumbed to fits of delusion and incoherence, during which Tina feared for his life the most.

On the morning of the third day, Tina had managed to fight the infection with no-maj remedies she’d commandeered throughout the ship. It was the memory of Queenie’s late-night experiments that aided her in the brewing of the medicines.

When Newt is finally lucid enough to query her methods, she winked playfully and assured him that the passengers from whom she’d stolen the items were in no need of them. “My Newt was knocking on Death’s door. There’s no way I’d let you walk through it.”

That same night she’d kissed him harder and deeper than she had before, as though both their lives depended on it.

Newt did not mind the shortness of breath that followed.

**_Present Day..._ **

Staring down at him now, riddled with sweat and lips quivering to a chill that isn’t there, Tina wants nothing more than to kiss his pain away.

She looks to her sister, waiting for her assessment.

“He’s fine. He just needs a little more time to recover,” the blonde explains in a soothing tone, putting her wand away. “His fever will break tonight.”

Tina’s eyes fall shut and she sighs, relieved. “Thanks, Queenie.”

A peaceful calm falls in the air, encasing the room in a pleasant silence. After she’d wiped Newt’s face and chest of sweat, cooling him down in the process, Tina got out of bed.

“Hey! Where you going?” Asks Queenie.

Her sister retrieved her wand from the bedside table and summons Newt’s case from under the bed. “I gotta feed them.”

She’s already starting to step into the hut below when Queenie stops her. “I’ll do it. You’re still weak from last night.”

“You don’t know the first thing about our creatures - their habits, their triggers. It wouldn’t be safe for you.”

Queenie’s lip curls at the use of the word “our”, nudging Tina’s mind with a playful shove.

Tina shrugs, not nearly as embarrassed as she might’ve been years prior. “We are married, after all.” And it was only natural that they shared everything. Despite the circumstances of their hasty union, she felt a surge of pride whenever she said the words aloud. Married, to one Newt Scamander. She considered herself lucky, irrespective of their situation, the scars on both of their arms.

She looks back up at her sister, unable to bring herself to reprimand her for listening to her thoughts. The wetness of her eyes and the fondness of her smile is contagious, and Tina can feel it spread across her own face.

“Come get me as soon as he wakes,” she instructs, disappearing into the case.

She’s gone only a quarter of an hour when Queenie’s urgent knock drums from above. The loss of blood seemed to impair her ordinarily fast reflexes to the point the sudden noise makes her jump, dropping the buckets of meat and pellets to the ground. she doesn’t shoo away the mooncalves who had begun to help themselves to an extra portion as Queenie’s insistent knocking continued.

Tina is scrambling up the stairs as fast as her wobbly legs would carry her.

“What’s the matter?!” She asks, glancing over to the bed to check that Newt was still there, safe.

Queenie, knees buckled inwards and wand aloft, the hand holding it shaking uncontrollably.

Tina watches her warily, stepping out of the case and approaching her sister slowly. “Queenie, talk to me.”

She opens her mouth but no sound escapes, merely a choked breath. “I... I... she...” Her eyes are wide and unfocused but directed in the direction of the door.

Whilst still holding Queenie by the arms, Tina slowly turns her neck to follow her gaze.

What greets her eyes is an image not unlike the crime scenes she’d been called to whilst employed at MACUSA. Scenes that would follow her into sleep, if ever it came, and plague her with nightmares for weeks.

There would be echoes of carnage all around, broken glass, cracked walls and ceilings, scorched objects, blood stained wood and plaster.

But now, at the entrance to their chambers, none of that could be seen. The room was as it always had been, neat and tidy, clinical in its cleanliness. All except for the limp pile of dark robes on the stone floor.

“She... she came in, I didn’t see. It was so quiet. I couldn’t even hear her thoughts and...” Queenie’s tormented and quiet voice explains.

Tina turns her back to the lifeless corpse laying in a stiff mass of twisted limbs and curdled body fluid.

“And what, Queenie? What happened?” She can feel her fingers tightening around Queenie’s arms, it’s her anchor in the moment as her nerves threaten to leave her.

Queenie clings to her sister in response, struggling to breathe, the ball in her throat seemed to only grow with each grasp for control, composure. “She tried- tried to kill Newt...”

Tina blinks. _What?_

“But then she saw me. I only deflected it; I swear. I didn’t say the words, Teenie... I couldn’t. Never again.” Her eyes plead desperately to be heard, the words fraught with terror. The violent flash of green light from only moments ago seemed to have obscured her senses

A beat.

Tina does not reply.

“You don’t believe me?”

“Queenie...”

“You don’t!" she cries.

“I do! Of course, I do...” she promises, redirecting her gaze back to the door, unsure just what to do next. What could they do? Although she wishes to comfort her sister, it could not be her main priority. They had to think fast and smart. Queenie would just have to hold it together for now. They needed her.

“I’m so sorry...” Queenie collapses into the nearest chair, defeated. “you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me and now... I’ve doomed us all.” Apparently she could see no way out either.

“Tina?”

The sister’s turn to face the bed where Newt is now completely awake and staring wide-eyed across at the pallid, lifeless body of Vinda Rosier.


	23. Chapter 23

Queenie’s unintelligible mutterings stood against the backdrop of a sunrise that ought to be colder. If she held any sort of beliefs, she knew she could not implore to the deities to save her - her hands are too dirty to pray.

Tina had been pacing for the better part of an hour and Newt spent much of that time trying to recover from both the aftershocks of fever and waking up to find a dead body on the floor.

The last thing he remembered before falling into darkness was trembling hands, a dripping fountain of blood and the unfortunate development in which Tina had discovered she’d killed a man in the village fire. As to how she was feeling about that, he could not hazard a guess. She hadn’t spoken to him since he’d awoken, nor had she addressed Queenie. She was, after all, preoccupied and since he was not yet able to stand and her sister seemed less engaged in the moment than he, it was up to her and her alone.

Tina felt frozen in a dream; a nightmare in which she had stumbled into a dune of quicksand, swarming around her, leeching away her grasp on control. The last remnants of night hung dark and cold and the sun lingered in the east, with no promise of reprieve. A new day may be starting, but they would have to navigate the shadows for a while yet.

If only it were but a dream.

“All right,” she said at last. “Okay.” She swallows past the tightening in her throat, holding fast to the moment. “We have to move the body.” She surveys her surroundings meticulously and waves her hand at the door, locking it shut. “Newt?”

“Yes?” He tries to push himself up and off the bed, but the splitting headache and blurred vision had different plans, causing him to slump back down against the mattress.

Tina, attention elsewhere, hadn’t noticed his struggles and asks, “can you find a spot in the case?”

Queenie’s head shot up in Newt’s peripheral vision. They stared agape at Tina who had set to work on vanishing the scorch marks on the stone wall. Even with her back to them, both her husband and sister knew she was spiralling. The idea of discarding a human corpse in a case full of magical creatures, some carnivorous, was certainly unorthodox and Tina had never been one for plans that weren’t fool proof. It stands to reason she would suggest such a thing at that moment.

“But Tina... the creatures,” reasons Newt as he makes another attempt at getting to his feet, this time with some success, clinging to one of the four posters as his crutch.

“They’ll be fine, just hide it.”

He shakes his head. “They’ll know.” And he shouldn’t have to tell her that. She knows better.

He wishes he was more alert, stronger. His wife needed him, and he was still swaying from side to side. He fears if he reaches out to hold her now, he would bring her down with him.

Tina’s arms fall to her sides, her back stooping with an exhale, supported by her hands on the back of her hips. Her voice is hopeless, void of any faith in the situation. “We don’t really have another choice, do we?”

“We do.”

The timid sound of her sister’s voice compels Tina to turn around. “Queenie?”

The blonde sat stiffly against the armchair by the hearth, her hands gripping the arms of the chair so tightly her knuckles were turning white beneath her grip. Her eyes were wide and unfocused, but her expression was one of a sudden burst of clarity. Her actions from moments ago had rendered her quite deaf and blind to reality but not to reason. And Tina’s plan made little sense.

“We could leave. Right now.” It’s a suggestion born out of the terrifying realisation that it was not the world that had frozen in a burst of green light, but her, and she had no choice but to keep up if she is to keep her sister safe. She’d failed once.

Once and never again

“What?” Blinks Tina.

Close by, outside the room and far along the corridor, Queenie could hear the distant inner mumblings of Abernathy who seemed to be searching for Vinda. This informs Queenie’s next argument.

“Vinda will be missed. They’ll look everywhere for her. If they suspect a mole in their ranks...”

Tina holds up her hand dismissively, growing more exasperated by the second. “It won’t come to that.” Her demeanour might’ve expressed a sense of calm, but inside the fear and anxiety was coming in waves, ebbing rhythmically against the walls of her mind. She could hear Newt and Queenie exchange a few words but they held no more meaning for her than in the rushing of the waves. The sound all but drowned them out.

Queenie steadies her legs to stand and approach her sister, her conviction holding her upward, like the dam that stops a river. “Think about it,” she begins. “Why was she here in the first place, Teenie? Why did she want to kill Newt?”

She had a point.

“Someone sent her,” adds Newt, now leaning against the nearest most poster to Tina.

She eyes him warily, consumed by worry for both his health and his safety. She shakes her head and her whole body with it. “It makes no sense. We just had the ceremony. I thought-“

“What better way to have us drop our guard than to think we’re safe?”

Tina blinks, lowering her head, and in that split second darkness beneath her lids, she sees red. “I don’t care, we’ve come this far. We have to try.” Her voice is laced with anger and frustration. With both of them. Dumbledore had specifically recruited Tina to infiltrate the Alliance and Newt had only joined the mission to protect her, so she wouldn’t have to go in alone and instead with someone who was familiar with the territory. They’d even gotten married and made an Unbreakable Vow all in an effort to convince Grindelwald that their loyalty was towards him. When all was said and done, the mission was ultimately Tina’s and neither Newt nor Queenie had any right to call the shots.

Not now. Not after everything.

Not after an innocent man’s life had been taken from him in a fire she had caused. And for what? To further reiterate their conviction to the Alliance, to Grindelwald, only to throw every effort and sacrifice to the wind. What they’d done; what she had done... had to mean something. It had to have worked. They had to see it through.

 _It didn’t work though, did it?_ Queenie’s voice echoes amongst the maelstrom in Tina’s head. _He still doubted you enough to have Newt killed_.

Tina throws a glare in Queenie’s direction. _We don’t know that he did_!

Newt didn’t miss the exchange between the sisters, and he could guess what had caused it.

He turns to his wife, everything falling away when he looked at her, willing her to listen, to understand. “It’s too big of a risk, Tina.”

She pulls away from him, hunching her shoulders and into herself. Her expression reflects the anger she felt. “Then this has been all for nothing! I killed a man and for what?! To flee back home when the going gets tough?” There are tears in her eyes now, the early morning light glinting off them is a spark he’d always loved.

But in them, there is a great suffering and fear that cripples his knees and gnaws at his heart.

She was in pain and she was scared. He can hear it in the quake of her breath, in the arch of her brow.

“We’ve come all this way, Newt. We’ve sacrificed so much for the world... “ his eyes follow her hands to her abdomen and his heart breaks to see them tremble. “We have to make it count.” As much as her determined mind rebelled against the alternative, her rationality knew it to be a fool’s errand, knew too that her husband and sister were right.

Newt presses on hand to hers still against her stomach and another on her cheek, his thumb caressing the skin there. His expression is as soft as his touch. “You’re right. We have sacrificed enough. I won’t risk you, Tina... I refuse.”

Tina sighs into his caress, eyes closed.

“I guess it’s two against one.”

...

“He ought to be around here somewhere,” huffs Theseus as he and Jacob rounded what seemed like the umpteenth street in the past ten minutes.

After searching the Red Hook shipyards twice over with no sign that Credence had ever been there, they decided to search the nearby parks and neighbourhoods. Not once, but twice they’d stumbled upon a young vagrant bound to the streets with dark hair, darker eyes but who still fell woefully short of the boy they were looking for.

They’d searched for much of that day and it was beginning to drop dark, and as it was early evening in New York, the streets only seemed to swarm with pedestrians by the minute. As such, Theseus would have a difficult job lighting his way in the presence of so many muggles during rush hour.

“Do you know, for one of the busiest cities in the world, these streets are poorly lit,” he comments absentmindedly to his companion.

Jacob chuckles, trudging along beside him. “Well, it can’t all be Times Square, Mister Scamander.”

Theseus huffs again, pushing onward through the night.

Another handful of hours pass with little to show for it until the shorter of the two men comes to a sudden and complete stop.

“Hey uh... Mister Scamander?”

Theseus pivots around, confused by the alarmed and sharp tone of his ordinarily jovial friend. He scans the surroundings, finding themselves to be at the entrance of a particularly dark and damp alleway. Once his eyes follow Jacob’s line of sight, there he sees the trampled, limp body of the boy they had been searching for.

“Merlin’s beard!” Theseus rushes to Credence’s side at once, pulling his wand out to stall the bleeding at the back of his head. “Quick! Get him up.” Jacob grabs a hold of the boy’s other side and positions him against the brick wall behind him.

“Credence? Credence, can you hear me?” Jacob implores, nudging at the boy’s dirtied lapel.

Theseus sighs, “I don’t think he can,” and adjusts his wands in his grip and begins waving it over the length of Credence’s body, muttering some spell that the no-maj didn’t recognise. The blood pooling beneath them seemed to evaporate into nothing as the colour returned to Credence’s complexion.

The Wizarding World had no shortage of remedies and enchantments that would spell sudden and complete death for the non-magical. Much was denied them, Jacob had been discovering.

“Mister Scamander?” Credence blinks after a moment, clearing his vision, adjusting to the men’s faces.

Theseus nods, his hand firm but soft on the younger wizard’s shoulder.

“Where’s your case?”

“Oh… No, I’m his brother, Theseus.”

Credence’s eyes narrow in confusion, still lacking some lucidity.

“What happened to ya, kid?” Asks Jacob.

Silence falls again, thicker this time, heavier in its uncertainty.

“I... I don’t remember.”

The three men look around into their surroundings, surveying the disarray of the damp, vacant alley. There had certainly been a struggle and if it weren’t for the crumbled bricks and cracked concrete at their feet, the scene could’ve passed as any other drunken tussle.

“Looks like you were jumped,” Jacob decides confidently. He’d grown up in slum tenements and was no stranger to the all too frequent brawls in the dark.

Credence rubs at the back of his head, fingers tangling with dried blood.“Why are you here?”

“Tina... Miss Goldstein. Do you remember her?”

“Of course.” She had been the first person in his pitiful life to show him any sort of kindness, in spite of the risk it posed to her career. He could never forget her.

Theseus nods. “She sent us to find you.”

“How did she know where I was?”

“She’s with Grindelwald, she and the other Scamander,” adds Jacob.

The boy’s eyes widen and darken in response. “They can’t be there!”

Jacob presses his finger’s into Credence’s shoulder in an attempt to reassure him. “Kid, it’s all right. They know what they’re doing.”

Black hair tussles with the frantic shake of his head.“No! They have to get out of there! You have to go there now!” His alarmed expression moves from Jacob to Theseus, imploringly.

“Why, Credence? What’s the matter?”

He braces his weight against the two men and pushes himself to his knees and then to his feet, leaning against the brick wall for further support. He pants out “he knew they’d be coming. He saw it, in one of his visions...”

The eldest two of the trio share a look of distressed confusion. “But Queenie would’ve known... she would’ve seen it in his mind,” Jacob reasons. “She would’ve told Tina. She wouldn’t have let her go if he knew about their plan.”

Neither Theseus nor Credence dare to speak and it’s in the strained silence that all three men become nauseous with dread.

Had Newt and Tina walked straight into the lion’s den?

Had Grindelwald been hatching a plan of his own against them?

Had Queenie lied to them once again?


	24. Chapter 24

With her sister’s life on the line once again, Queenie sprung into action and has summoned all of her belongings and dropped them into Newt’s case in the space of a minute. Of these items, she hands said brother-in-law a small phial of rejuvenating potion to get him through his lethargic state.

Tina, having been outvoted, has slumped in the armchair Queenie had only moments ago been shaking in whilst Newt set quill to paper to no doubt alert Theseus and the appropriate channels of the immediate development. Given how disorientated he had been mere minutes prior and how she now felt much the same way, Tina had half a mind to ask Queenie for some of that same potion. Everything seemed to be happening in a blur, at a rate too fast to measure, and she felt herself careen out of control.

Both her sister and husband were running as if on instinct alone and she could do little to help them or their situation save for avoiding eye-contact with the corpse on the other side of the room.

She lay there like a rag-doll, discardedhaphazardly against the stone wall, limbs splayed out from the torso at unnatural angles. If it weren’t for the ghostly complexion, unblinking eyes and scorched marble around her, one could mistake Vinda’s state as sleep, as deep and dreamless as the sea.

But the Auror in Tina had come to recognise death all too well and there was no mistaking that foul stench it left lingering in the air. It gnawed at her senses and lurched in her throat until she’s transfiguring the forgotten ashtray at her side into a small basin to vomit in.

Newt is at her side in an instant, squatting down and pushing her hair away from her face. “Are you all right, love?” he asks before she shakes her head in response. “What can I do?”

Wiping at her mouth and brow, Tina ignores his question in favour of one of her own. “Are you sure this is the right decision?” She vanishes the basin and it’s contents before adding, “there has to be some other way. A way that doesn’t mean it was all for nothing.” She hears her tone and how desperate it makes her seem. Newt’s eyes soften at the sound of it. He understands from where it stems and it’s as difficult to ignore as it is to deny the death of that old man.

“It won’t be all for nothing, I promise.” He isn’t entirely certain he can keep it but he will do everything in his power to try. Tina deserves no less than his utmost conviction and he’d sooner take his own life than watch his wife suffer with the guilt of that which she could never have prevented. The man chose to stay behind and she could not have known. Its enough for Newt, but he knows she won’t see it that way. The shaky breath and unsteady tapping of her foot tells him she doesn’t. That her heart is heavy with regret and shame is echoed by the frightened glint in her eyes

Words rendered moot, Newt pulls her into an embrace and holds her as she weeps softly into his neck. No sound comes but he feels the dampness of her tears soak his collar.

“I love you,” he breathes into her hair.“I’m here,” he assures as he feels her arms tighten around his back. He doesn’t know if the endearment helps but he says it anyway, with heart abrim.

Queenie hovers by the door, her ear pressed through the gap, listening for any approaching footsteps and feeling for any stray thoughts. Unable to hear any in the dead of the night, she beckons the couple over to her side. “This is our chance. There’s only two standing watch at the exit.” The exit that was about two miles away out of the mountain fortress. A distance that would take almost an hour at a brisk pace, without the hindrance of stealth.

It’s the exact problem both Tina and Newt began thinking rather obnoxiously about. “Hush!” Queenie reprimands, squeezing her eyes shut. “There’s no other way our. We can’t apparate.”

“What about floo?”

“Newt?”

“The fireplaces are connected to some network,” he reminds them of the mysterious interloper from their first night’s stay. “Surely it could transport us to the last location.”

“Is that even possible?” Tina wonders. Although she’d lived in Britain for the majority of the last decade, she was still American and flooing, though not unfamiliar to her, had not yet lost its novelty.

Newt nods, “if I enchant the powder to do just that, it could work.” He tries to mask the uncertainty in his voice so as not to alarm Tina any further.

“There’s just one problem,” Queenie points out. “We have no floo powder.”

Newt’s face and shoulders sag dejectedly. “Blast it!”

“Maybe we do,” interjects Tina, gesturing for Newt to drop the case.He does, unlocking it for her as she pulls out her wand. “Accio pouch,” she spells and out flies at deep crimson bag the size of a fist, drawn tightly shut by a shining silver drawstring. 

_What’s that?_ Queenie wonders.

“It’s powder I saved when I left London after...” she drifts off, plunging into a memory from the most difficult time in her life.

**_Eight and a half months ago..._ **

Tina’s knees bruise under the weight of her pain and exhaustion when she entered her apartment after an overlong day of trans-Atlantic travel. How she’d managed to hold herself up during the journey through Manhattan from MACUSA’s transport office was anyone’s guess.

Her spine ached, her hips throbbed and her wrist stung from the tightness of the string from which a velvet pouch hung. She didn’t have the heart to untie it, it was gone - she’d left it in London, teary-eyed and reaching out to her through the emerald flames.

But it’s contents taunt her, scoff at her and call her weak, feeble and needy. The goading has teeth and the skin of her wrist becomes raw and irritated.

Tina tore it from her arm in one swift tug, tearing the string apart and throwing the pouch across the floor.

“I don’t need him!” she hissed. “I won’t go back! I’m better off alone.” A part of her pitied the fact she was talking to nothing but air but another, more wounded and angrypart was hopeful that the granules of powder could hear her.

The effort it took ripped at her already tender body, sore and still healing from the aftershocks of the Cruciatus Curse. She winced in response to the sharp jolts working their way through her muscles.

This pain continued for weeks still and in no second of the extended spells of agony did she resort to Dreamless Sleep and the respite it would bring.

The pain is her constant companion, a reminder it was real. That her body was not always empty, void of life. That she had a reason to forget the pouch, it’s contents and what they implied.

She would not go back to him.

She couldn’t.

**_Present day..._ **

Newt’s sharp intake of breath is not so well concealed as Tina thinks he intended it to be and she regrets mentioning it. She hates to hurt him.

Queenie swallows hard, guilt consuming her once more, but it also motivates her back into action. Get Tina out of there.

She reaches for the pouch, tugging it open and finding only a small handful of powder glittering up at her from the dark. “There’s not enough for all of us.” In truth, there was barely enough for one person and suddenly, the next obstacle presents itself.

“I’ll go,” Tina volunteers, stiff backed and straight faced.

Newt grabs at her wrist. “No,it’s too dangerous! We don’t even know where it’ll lead!”

Tina turns to him, “Newt, really? When have you ever used that excuse? You know I’m a perfectly capable Auror. I’m best equipped to walk into the unknown.”

Ordinarily, Newt would have difficulty disputing her point as it was just a matter of fact. However, the current circumstances demand that he put his foot down. “You could be with child, Tina...” The words are out of his mouth and filtering upwards toward his ears before he can think better of voicing them. Tina’s expression is a mixture of shock and a wince, made uncomfortable by the implication of it all and annoyed that he would use this against her, knowing she couldn’t counter it.

“Well you’re not going in my place. You can forget about that,” she huffed defiantly.

Her husband stares back at her, opening his mouth to object again when Queenie interjects, moving between them with her hands up. “I’ll go.” And without letting either of them interrupt, she kisses Tina on the cheek before hugging her and stepping into the chasm of the fireplace. “Fix the floo, Newt.”

A beat.

Newt looks apologetically at Tina and points his wand at Queenie’s handful of powder. Sparks erupt from the tip and swarm the particles with a brilliant blue. “That should do it.” He steps back behind his wife whose heart was frightful in her eyes.

“Queenie...” she breathes, unsure what to say. They didn’t know what would be on the other end and just how she could help them from wherever it was. They only knew they were separating and it may be forever.

_I know_ , Queenie smiles warmly at her big sister, braving herself for the next few moments. She had to do this for Tina. It gives her enough strength to drop and release the powder at her feet, allowing the flames to erupt around her.

In a gust and a flash, the hearth is empty and Queenie is gone. Her voice saying “s _ee you soon, Teenie_ _”_ is left ringing in Tina’s head.

She swings around to Newt, her eyes harder than they had been moments ago. “Why did you agree to that?! Why did you help her leave?!”

Newt steps back slightly, his hands held up defensively. “She knows where the floo will lead her. She told me,” he admits.

“And why didn’t she tell me?!”

“Because you never would have let her go.”

Tina gapes at him, a glare lingers in the corner of her eyes. “And you did?”

Newt tries his hardest to keep his shoulders from shrugging but it was instinctual and his body had a habit of hunching in on itself when confronted. “It was either you or her and I’m sorry, love but you’re my wife and I couldn’t leave you to make the choice between myself or your sister.”

Unfortunately for her but fortunately for Newt, she could understand his logic and conceded he was right. She sighs, letting the tension leave her body, though much remained. “Where is she?”

Newt adjusts his coat nervously, switching the case from one hand to the other. “She’s in Grindelwald’s chambers...” he trails off, bracing for the storm.

Tina blinks. “What?”

“She remembered hearing a stray thought a few days ago, that he’d been in our room and seen... us,”

“It was him?”

Newt nods. Tina shivers.

He then goes onto explain what Queenie had exchanged with him in silence whilst Tina had been none the wiser. She’d told him that Grindelwald used his own private floo network to spy on his followers to ensure they maintained their loyalty. That it was a guess but Queenie deduced his chambers as the heart of the network and that it would lead her there.

“And what exactly is the point of her risking her life to go there of all places?!” Tina considered herself a smart woman, capable of keeping up intellectually, but she could not for the life of her fathom what her sister had been thinking. It seemed she hadn’t been at all.

“I don’t know but she seemed certain it wouldn’t be a waste of time,” Newt confirms. “That it will get us out of here.”

“Oh well time we have in abundance,” groans Tina sarcastically, the anxiety swelling inside her stomach. “What are we supposed to do in the meantime? With that?!” She gestures to the still very real, very dead body on the floor.

“Oh I wouldn’t worry about that,” comes a sudden voice from nowhere, when equally as sudden, a figure appears in front of their very eyes, standing right next to Vinda’s corpse.

The solitary white eye gleams in the early morning hue, sinister and full of malice.He kicks at the bundle of fabric having fallen to his feet and steps toward the couple.

Newt and Tina immediately close the distant between one another, feeling stronger as a unit against the inevitable.

“Miss Rosier is the least of your troubles,” sneers Grindelwald.


	25. Chapter 25

The room seemed to have iced over with a silent chill.

The air felt somehow thicker and thinner simultaneously, and Tina could hardly breathe for the unruliness of it.

By his stiff presence close at her side, she thinks Newt couldn’t either.

“How long have you been here?” Neither is certain which of them ask this question, but it’s on both of their minds nonetheless. What can only be deduced as an invisibility cloak at Grindelwald’s feet, they expect the answer that comes.

“Oh, from the moment Queenie killed poor Vinda here,” his creased and pallid hand falls out of the coat draped over his shoulders and summons the deceased’s wand with the twitch of a finger. “I didn’t think she’d be successful in killing Newt, but I didn’t expect dear Queenie would be the one to finish her.”

The order had come from him, not that they doubted it.

Tina swallows hard but the lump in her throat only grows in response. “How long have you known?” She manages, feeling Newt tuck himself closer to her side, his hand holds hers at her back.

The gesture is familiar. It’s one he had used in Paris all those years ago, at Père Lachaise as they fled from the same man now bounding around them as a boar stalks its prey in the undergrowth. And Tina could speak for the both of them and say they felt inexplicably besieged.

Grindelwald taps his chin comically and says “I’d seen you coming for quite some time. A while before the little incident at the ministry earlier this year in point of fact.” His tone is far too flippant for just what he was referring to. What had been, to him, insignificant and hardly worth the effort to remember was the worst night of Newt and Tina’s lives.

The smirk that touches the side of his mouth tells them he knows this and revels in their misery.

Newt wanted nothing more than to strike him down where he stands, but the tightening of Tina’s fingers against his palm is enough to temper the urge. For the moment.

Tina remains impassive despite the pain in her chest. She won’t address or react to his cruel, offhanded comment. She refuses to give him the satisfaction of seeing her crumble, hearing her voice break as she speaks the words her heart was bellowing.

“Then why this farce?” She asks instead. “Why go to the trouble of letting us think we had fooled you?”

Infuriatingly, Grindelwald shrugs, “I wanted to see how far you would go to prove yourselves.”

Tina knew what he was trying to do. He was antagonising them, throwing fuel into the fire in an attempt to push them over the edge. Tina wasn’t falling for it but the stiffness of Newt’s body and the hitch in his breath informs her that he is. She wishes, at that moment, that she had her sister’s gift. If only to quell the fury inside her husband, to calm him in the midst of someone who could do him irreparable harm.

Unable to do so, she hopes the squeeze of his hand and the soft nudge she gives him will be enough for him to regain composure and maintain it for however long this standoff would last.

“It worked out nicely to my benefit,” the older man adds absentmindedly.

Newt narrows his eyes. “What do you mean?” With his hand on Tina, his eyes never leave Grindelwald, tracking his movements, however slight, prepared to strike should the moment call for it.

Another shrug, though they could tell there was more in it than he tried to let on.

“Your initiation. You let quite a bit of blood, so much so both of you were dreadfully pale afterwards - you weren’t conscious for end of the ceremony. Such a shame too, it was...” he trails off, running his hand along the ornate etchings on the wall. “Fruitful.” There’s a wicked sneer in the tail end of his explanation, a foul snigger.

“Speak plainly, snake!” demands Tina, patience and composure waring thin.

Grindelwald chuckles, unfazed by her bite. “Come now, Tina... you’re a clever witch,” he uses the same tone he’d used whilst under the guise of Graves and it gnaws at her more than a reminder should. “Surely you can puzzle it out.”

He was having fun and she would not play his game. Still, he was getting at something pivotal and the urgency of it thrusts her back to the memory of the night before, where their blood had left their bodies and risen from the stone floor into the air. It’s where they, coaxed by the rhythmic chanting of magical tongues, swirled together in the air until two droplets became one.

“No...” she chokes, eyes wide, heart still.

The realisation is as sudden and bitter as the chill in the air. It claws at her chest, within which her heart had suddenly stopped beating.

A low chuckle erupts from deep inside Grindelwald’s chest. “Truly he ought to have seen it coming,” he adds, taking a seat in the armchair. “It would seem old Albus isn’t quite as sharp as he once was.” An almost wistful cloud passes over his face in a fleeting second; though he quickly shakes it off with disgust.

Tina and Newt are quiet. They say nothing, but the query hangs in the air.

“I don’t know whether you’re aware of this Newt but... your good old friend Dumbledore placed a protection charm on you.”

A beat.

Then another.

“What?” Newt gawks. Tina blinks.

Grindelwald nods, “makes sense that he wouldn’t have told you. Not with Tina involved.”

The couple share a look of bewilderment.

“Dumbledore enchanted me with protection?” Newt repeats. “But not Tina?” The disbelief is much too potent to give way to any other emotion he knew he was bound to feel if this turned out to be the truth, as remote as it seemed.

“But why?!” He demands.

A third shrug is almost as irritating as the first when it comes. “That’s the question, isn’t it? Why indeed...” his voice seems to trail off into a tone of bitterness that was almost wounded, almost human in it’s nakedness.

Tina’s eyes narrow as she caught it. All the while her mind was racing to understand just what the connection of Newt being magically protected was to what the ceremonial initiation had meant for them.

And then...

It crashes into her like a rogue wave in a storm. Her foundations threaten to crumble from the force of it.

It all made sense now.

“All of this and for what?” She speaks into the silence. Newt turns to look at her, Grindelwald does not. She steps toward him, Newt following, remaining close at her side. “Because you can’t understand why Dumbledore would care for more than one person in the world? Can’t you see how pathetic it makes you? How weak!” She doesn’t care anymore, she’d unleash her anger because the fear now realised is pushing it over the surface. “You plan to kill Newt by killing me. Why? To hurt Dumbledore? To fill the hole he left with vindictiveness?” She scoffs, “and you wonder why he broke _your_ pact.”

The latter of Tina’s words is the tide that floods Newt’s stomach and he too, realises what Grindelwald had done and why.

“You... bound our blood together,” he stammers. “You made a blood pact.”

Grindelwald still hadn’t moved, Tina’s words still heavy in the air. “Very good, you two,” he confirms. “A blood pact binds your souls together. Two that are one. What one feels, the other will also.”

In other words, Newt understands, what fate befalls either, neither can escape.

“You cannot hurt me but-“

“I can hurt Tina,” he smirks darkly.

Without sparing a second thought, Newt loops his arm around Tina’s midriff and pushes her behind him, wand aloft and pointed straight at Grindelwald. “You will not touch my wife!”

The other man finally turns to look at them and smiles. It isn’t warm. It’s as cold as the eyes above it. “Are you going to kill me, Newt? A living, breathing creature?”

It’s a taunt and Newt can hear it, but he straightens his wand arm and lifts his chin in defiance. “Some creatures the world is better off without.” He feels Tina move behind him, turning her head to look back.

“Queenie...” she breathes, barely a whisper.

Had she been successful? Had someone been waiting to stop her in Grindelwald’s room? Was she all right?

“She’ll be joining us shortly, Mister Grindelwald Sir,” Abernathy announces as he walks into the room, stopping to glare at Tina whose back was now pressed up against Newt’s. “She and Albus Dumbledore are traitors alike, and they both deserve to lose someone for it.” He glances down at Vinda’s corpse. “Can’t say she’ll be missed but treachery can’t go unpunished. Right, Mister Grindelwald?”

Grindelwald rolls his eyes, “Naturally.” He lifts himself up onto his feet and fixes his coat. “Shall we?” He gestures for the exit.

Newt and Tina discover, in an effort to make their escape, their muscles lock into place, stiff and uncooperative to the command of their brains. It had been the same during their first evening in the company of the Alliance, fixed to their seats at the dining table, unable to move, unable to flee, to fight.

They are helpless.

Newt’s wrist throbbed with his futile effort to stupefy Grindelwald. His arm seemed to have frozen in the air.

Abernathy and Grindelwald laugh mockingly at him as they move to leave the room.

As he passes her, Grindelwald leans in to whisper in Tina’s ear, “who’s the weak one now?” he hisses, the tip of his wand pressed hard to the side of her neck.

...

Queenie stumbles out of the fireplace in a mist of soot and smoke. The pink of her frock had frayed at the hem and the toe of one heel was scorched. These things would’ve bothered her on any other day, but today was not that day and she has to race against the clock to find something of use.

With the cavernous room and her head quiet, she relaxes somewhat knowing she is alone save for the ticking of the enchanted timepiece hovering above the mantle, unbearably louder than it ought to be.

Suspecting it would be pointless to try summoning an owl to deliver an SOS to Isaura at Castleobruxo, Queenie instead points her wand at every drawer, cabinet, snuffbox and chest in search of more floo powder.

She assumed Grindelwald’s fireplace would be an open network unlike the rest in the mountain and she could use it to send a prompt call for aid, without having to leave her sister and brother-in-law behind.

She couldn’t.

She wouldn't.

After what seemed like one too many ticks and an anxious amount of tocks later, there’s a shift in a small chest in the farthest corner of the room, hidden beneath the spiral staircase.

Queenie follows the rummaging sound and pushes the chest out of the way, freeing a dusty box of floo powder that gravitates into her hands. “Finally,” she exhales before moving toward the fireplace and kneeling down into the ash on the floor. Dirtying her clothes and knees do not even cross her mind.

She takes a handful of powder and closes her eyes as she leans forward, her face above the kindling.

She’s ready to drop the floo into place when the door is blasted open with a loud crash.

Through the fog of debris and remnants of smoke comes three acolytes, armed and ready to take her.

“It’s too late, sweet thing,” the tallest brute of the trio leers. “He has your sister and he’s invited you to watch the show.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea whats going on and at this point, i'm too afraid to stop. Fuel my frenzy! Leave a comment!


	26. Chapter 26

It wasn’t that Theseus didn’t trust Graves, rather it was that he didn’t trust Seraphina Picquery. As President for the tenth consecutive year, she was a reflection of MACUSA at large. This wouldn’t be an issue for Theseus if it weren’t for the fact that this North American Congress had garnered for itself an unsavoury reputation worldwide.

It’s reactionary procedures regarding the non-magical community., the regressive legislation in place, the degrading in-office hierarchy as well as extreme punitive measures that came in the form of a death chamber had all been witnessed by the British Auror during one visit or another. Every last one left a foul taste in his mouth that lingered for days afterwards, too stubborn to rinse away, too shocking to forget. It was made worse by the knowledge that both his brother and sister-in-law had once been at the mercy of this blatantly merciless system.

It was precisely this that fuelled his reluctance to leave Credence in their grossly inept hands.

His superiors at the Ministry back home all but ordered him to do so and that left him stuck between a rock and a hard place. But if Credence was telling the truth, then there was no time to wrestle with his inner conflict.Tina and Newt were in danger and they may not even know it. If they did know, that meant they’d tried to escape and he has far less time to get to them before it’s too late.

_ Please don’t let it be too late_ , he implores to a God that had long ago stopped listening with a desperation he hadn’t felt since Grindelwald set his sights on Leta.

He could not lose anyone else. Not them. Not when they’d only just begun.

“Mister Scamander, it’s time,” comes a voice behind him. “Tell us where the Obscurial is.” The choice of words and the tone with which Madam Picquery makes her demand is both dehumanising and archaic. If Newt had been in earshot, he’d have fumed at the disproportionate lack of separating the host from the parasite that was an Obscures. To deny the difference is to render Credence to little more than the destructive force inside him. Such as it was at MACUSA and in the States as a whole, urging Theseus to disobey the President’s order.

“With all due respect, Madam President,” he began, adjusting the lapel of his coat. “And I do respect you, of course. But I would trust you with the boy about as far as I could throw you.” Going against both his Minister and that of America could earn him an immediate suspension or dismissal, but he doesn’t care. They could not take away his wand and so long as he had the ability and means to get to Rio, he would be there by daybreak, with Credence at his side, should that be his wish.

Graves returns before Picquery has a chance to summon her ire. “Aurors rallied and ready to go. I spoke to the Minister, he’s sending on the British forces as we speak. They’ll meet us in Brazil,” he announces, said American Aurors bringing up the rear. The sea of trench coats and fedoras are a livery to rival the regalia of decades past, accompanied by a thunderous, though not disorganised march. As one Head Auror to another, Theseus would commend Graves on this running of such a tight ship. And hopes too that his own subordinates are as stalwart in their impending task.

They would have to be.

Catching and detaining Grindelwald was the magical world’s top priority. His was to get his brother and Tina out of harm’s reach.

He thinks of his new friend, Jacob and how the boy’s revelation had cast doubt on his love once again. Theseus, having never formally met Queenie, didn’t have an opinion that may reassure Jacob, that she was indeed genuine in her desire to defect from Grindelwald’s Alliance. Truly, there was no guarantee until they saw her, saw her sister with her. If anything, Theseus knew Tina. Knew too that her instincts were second to none, as he’d relied heavily upon them on their evening raids and arrests. If Tina trusted Queenie, they ought to as well.

This is what he decides to share with Jacob when he arrives at the Goldstein’s apartment to collect Credence before setting off.

“She fooled her sister once,” Jacob responds with an uncharacteristic gloom. “Who’s to say she hasn’t done it again?”

Theseus sighs. They don’t have time for this. “As you may recall, Tina had a lot on her mind at the time...” no one needed the reminder of Newt’s feigned death and the child that never was. “She went into this mission single-minded with Newt at her side. They’ll know if Queenie is lying.”

Jacob hovers by Queenie’s bed. “What about the... uh... that controlling spell? The one that makes you a puppet?”

As Theseus opens his mouth, he hears another voice say it for him. “The Imperious Curse.” Credence mutters in the corner by the window, hunched in on himself, eyes averted.

Impressed, Theseus nods. “Exactly, yes. I doubt that particular form of magic is effective on such a skilled Legilimens - she’ll see it coming.” Of course, he can’t be sure but it’s an educated assumption and he hopes Jacob will be content with it.

A moment of silence weighs heavily with consideration before a nod confirms that yes, it’s enough to quell the anxiety within him.

“Okay! So when do we get going?”

Theseus and Credence share an apprehensive, though fleeting, look.

“I don’t think it’s the best idea for you to join us, Mister Kowalski. I can’t protect you out there,” reasons Theseus. His impatience is waning because he was to have met Graves five minutes ago.

Jacob approaches the two other men, all three congregating around the dining table. “Look... Theseus,” he nods respectfully at the use of the elder brother’s first name. “I lost her once. I didn’t try to stop her. I froze,” he swallows hard, his stubble chafing against his collar. “I have to make it up to her. If she needs me to, I have to try and save her. Like I shoulda done all those years ago.”

There are tears in his dark eyes and Theseus’s heart lurches to see it. He had not been the only one to lose someone that night in Paris. He sees that now.

How could he refuse him now?

“All right,” Theseus exhales, relenting. “But be smart. Stay out of sight.”

Jacob nods. This wasn’t his first rodeo after all.

Theseus turns to the boy who had taken his other outstretched arm. “The same goes for you, Credence. You don’t get involved. You stay with Mister Kowalski at all times.”

The darkest eyes of the trio blink back at him.

“Understand?”

Credence nods, head down.

“Good.” Then with one sharp tug upwards, the Goldstein apartment is vacant once more.

...

As planned, Graves is there to greet them at MACUSA’s floo office. His Aurors had already gone ahead to Castlelobruxo to meet with the school’s Headmistress. “She already called their Ministry and they’re waiting for us and the Brits before storming the fortress.”

Theseus nods, noting how the American’s eyebrow raises at the sight of both Jacob and Credence. “They refuse to stay behind,” he explains.

Graves nods, ushering Credence to follow him.

The boy, perhaps not unexpectedly, recoils at the sight of him. The trauma Grindelwald inflicted from years ago had left scars deeper than anyone could see. But it’s there in the frightened flare in his eyes, the trembling of his hands, the loss of a heartbeat.

“My apologies, Credence. I forgot myself,” Graves steps back again, giving the boy some space.

Grindelwald’s influence, though certainly rather different, had also impacted his mental state all too profoundly to the point that he too, could not bear human company for a time. Save for Tina...

He could not imagine the betrayal Credence ought to have felt from a once sworn ally. And this bitterness would leave an indelible mark upon his countenance for Credence. Graves does not blame him. If he could walk with him back into the lion’s den, the boy was far stronger than even Grindelwald suspected.

_ It’s certainly more than I could manage_ , admits Graves to himself.

He beckons the trio over to a desk at the entrance. Apparently MACUSA’s stringent rules required all of them to sign travel documents before floo’ing abroad. It seems even the impending doom of the world at large would have to wait for paperwork to be signed and filed.

Theseus shakes his head with a roll of his eyes. Time is not a luxury they could afford. “Is this strictly necessary?” He asks the receptionist who seemed to be running on auto-pilot, enchanted to respond and move by some invisible direction.

The response only reiterates this theory. “All MACUSA employees, members of the public and foreign dignitaries must sign the logbooks for archival use and records.” It’s delivered in the most monotonous voice Jacob had ever heard. It rivalled even that of his no-nonsense, brute of a foreman.

When it comes to him to sign his name, he looks to Theseus with apprehension, hoping he’ll remember that he’s a no-maj and ought not to be there in the first place.

The Auror moves his eyes in a gesture for Jacob to follow his gaze down at the logbook, upon which his name is scrawled in golden ink.

_Magic... gotta love it!_

The men approach the few vacant fireplaces in the high-ceilinged wall and Theseus turns to Jacob. “Right, so this is Floo Powd-“

“I know,” interrupts Jacob. “Your brother taught me.”

“Of course he did,” Theseus smiles wistfully, his mouth frowning slowly as he hands both Jacob and Credence a handful of powder each.

Jacob catches on and places a comforting hand on the taller man’s shoulder. “We’ll get them back. All of them.”

Theseus appreciates the sentiment and the gesture. Of course, not one of them could predict the outcome of the near or distant future, but it’s comforting to hear it nonetheless. He’d been discovering, over the last few days, just how kind and optimistic Jacob Kowalski was. How sincere. He had such an effect on him that he wonders how MACUSA could have tried to obliviate such a man. There was no one quite as trustworthy, not in Theseus’s experience.

Just as Credence steps into his hearth, Theseus notices an envelope poking out of Jacob’s coat pocket. He assumes it’s the same one he’d been asked to deliver.

“Have you read it?” He asks. It’s none of his business but he feels close enough to Jacob already to feel comfortable doing so.

Jacob’s hand instinctively reaches for the letter, his palm pressed against the wax seal. “Not yet.”

The inevitable question lingers in the stuffy, poorly ventilated air.

The shorter man tries to shrug but there’s far too much pain weighing them down. “I don’t want it to be the last time I hear from her. I have to see her first... alive.” He doesn’t know the contents of her letter, but he knows that whatever it is, it’ll break his heart all over again. And that’s not the last memory he wishes to associate with Queenie Goldstein.

Theseus is silent for a moment, considering the depth of Jacob’s answer. “I understand.” And it’s true.

He thinks of Leta and wishes they’d had more time.

As much as it hurts to know it’s lost to him now, he finds strength in the knowledge that his little brother could have what he had been denied. 

Grindelwald had taken it from him. He would not let him do the same to Newt. He truly believes his brother deserves the world and to him, Tina is just that.

And with that, Theseus is marching toward the hole in the wall and letting the green embers take him. “Hang in there, little brother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With this update, I’m hoping everyone is coping in these difficult times and that you’re following the advice given by your respective governments. Everyone wash your hands, stay safe and fill this respite with as much positivity and joyous distractions (of which I hope my story is one) as possible!


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (warning: strong injury/torture detail)

**_Ten months ago..._ **

To watch her writhe helplessly on the cold tiled floor was perhaps the hardest sight Newt ever had to endure. His eyes burned to watch the blood slowly seep from beneath her body, the black tiles flooding at their feet.

Grindelwald’s followers jeered maliciously at Tina’s torment, feelings of shame at having been bested by her mere moments previous is replaced by vindication. Their loud, vulgar voices growled their approval, encouraging their leader to press harder, make her hurt more.

“Stop it!! Punish me!” Newt bellowed, his voice hoarse, his face red.

Grindelwald lifted the tip of his wand ever so slightly, granting Tina a fleeting respite from the pain. Though by the vacant look on her face, it seemed she was already half-gone.

In the brief moment of silence, Newt noticed Queenie averting her gaze. And in that split second, he hated her. She had brought this man into their lives, knowing Tina was vulnerable and a prime target: her and their child.

She did this. She made this happen. She as good as held the wand that birthed the curse. She does not get to look away - she deserves to watch her sister suffer for that which she had brought upon her.

Her hand clutched at her face, feeling Newt’s loathing pierce through the air and into her skin.

Good.

Newt hoped it hurt.

“Please... just take me instead,” he implored to Grindelwald who had turned to face him. “Kill me instead - do worse, I don’t care. Just please...” he chokes, salt tears running into his mouth. “Don’t harm her any longer.”

Grindelwald chuckled lowly, his followers add their own sniggering chorus. “Oh Newt... don’t you understand?” He knelt down closer to Tina whose body jolted every few seconds, the only movement, albeit unnatural, that assured Newt she was still alive.

But when the pallid, gaunt hand reaches out to caress the bump at her middle, Newt fights against the two decidedly larger men at his sides. “Don’t you dare touch her!” He spat, the venom on his tongue is a foreign taste but it’s one he felt bubbling deep inside him, pushing to overflow.

The older wizard ignored him, his hand fixed to Tina’s belly. “It’s precisely the fact you care not for your own life that brought us here tonight. Tina’s life however, and that of your unborn child...” his hand flipped, and he used his knuckles to touch Tina. “Well, what better punishment could I have given you?”

Newt could taste blood from biting his lip, the muscles of his forearms ached from fighting against his brutish restraints who didn’t seem at all fazed by his attempt to break free and protect his love.

“Let her go,” he pleaded desperately. “Let them live.” He prayed to any God who might’ve been listening at that precise moment to bestow upon Grindelwald some small semblance of humanity. To make him remember love and the pain of losing it.

Newt knew he had a heart, because his actions over the last ten years proved that it had broken. Only the shattered would wound the world with the shards.

A beat.

Newt’s tears flowed freely at this point, as too did the blood from Tina’s body. The smell of iron in the office was so pungent that his stomach churned in response.

She had lost so much, too much to still be alive. But her chest barely moved, save the slightest, occasional rise and fall that only the trained eye would perceive.

Despite the horror and shock it instilled within him, Newt refused to look away from her. His vision became obscured with tears but the crimson puddle all around her penetrated the blur. Red was all he could see.

He continued to struggle against the two overlarge men, grinding his teeth, clenching every muscle he could move.

“Tina...” he breathes as Tina opened her eyes to find his frightened stare.

**_Present day..._ **

Tina had never seen him so scared, so lost and so helpless. Not at MACUSA when the false Graves had apprehended his case. Not in Paris when his brother tried to save Leta. And not even when she’d shunned him from her sight after the revelation in the en suite.

It was unnatural, misplaced - his unique, delicate features did not welcome the look of fright too kindly. It hurt Tina all the more to see it gaze down at her as she fell unconscious.

She wonders if the same crippling fear is as foreign to her face as it had been to Newt’s, for she knows, deep in her gut, she is feeling as equally terrified as she watches Grindelwald torture her husband.

The repetition of the word “Crucio,” signals another shock to Newt’s already battered and bruised body. He crumbles from the chair to the jagged stone floor underfoot, the ridged terrain stabbing into his skin. He coughs, spluttering blood in droplets at Tina’s feet.

She was bound to her seat by the same phantom force Grindelwald had used twice before. She could not move; she could not reach out to him.

The helplessness is the worst of all.

“Newt!” She cries, a strained sob choking her of breath.

Every acolyte, Abernathy included, watch from the side-lines. Some grinning, most impassive, but all unfeeling. They stood as though statues, waiting for their master’s next command. Whether that be to turn their wands on Tina or to carry Newt’s near lifeless body from the room.

Despite how unbearable it was to watch him suffer, to be separated from each other spells an altogether more uncertain fate.

She could take the torture in his stead, but she knows Grindelwald isn’t a man who repeats himself, and he’d already done the same to her. If he suspected what they had about her condition, however, he would make an exception and divert his attentions from Newt to her in the space of a heartbeat.

If they survived this, Newt would never forgive her for taking that risk. And she can hear him now, “I would take the Cruciatus Curse a million times over to protect you, Tina.”

Instead, Tina demands Grindelwald’s attention in the only way she can think of. “I wonder what Dumbledore would think of what you’ve become.”

His back is to her, but she can tell by the ever-so-slight twitch of his neck, he had heard her. The distraction gives Newt the chance to catch what remained of his breath.

Satisfied it was working, Tina presses harder. “The great Gellert Grindelwald, wielder of the famed Elder Wand; once the sole confidante of the greatest wizard alive... now a mere megalomaniacal sadist,” she comments with as derisive a tone as she could muster. To be true, given the truth of her words, it wasn’t hard. “It’s pathetic,” she scoffs.

His back straightens in response but does not turn to look at her.

“Tina...” Newt chokes, blood sliding from his lips as he turns onto his chest, his hands clutching at the stone in an attempt to pull himself closer to his wife. “Don’t...” it’s all he can manage and it’s enough for Tina to understand.

But Grindelwald had ceased the torture. The curse lingers still in the air around them, but it hummed aimlessly, lost without direction, without a target.

“And for what?” Tina snaps, her eyes as dark as her hair. “Because he wouldn’t tag along on your quest to enslave all muggle-kind? Did you get lonely on your travels? No one to validate your poor little sensibilities? Aw! Poor little man,” she pouts mockingly. It’s a perilous game, to taunt the most dangerous dark wizard in living memory. But if she could stall him, keep his wand away from Newt, perhaps Isaura and the others would storm the fortress before his plan came to fruition.

It’s then Tina is reminded of her sister, who had travelled through the floo network within the mountain to call for aid. Where was she? Had she been caught?

“Brave words, Porpentina,” cautions Grindelwald.

“Braver than you to hurt an unarmed wizard,” she challenges.

“Watch your tongue, bitch!” Abernathy rebukes, stepping forward from the congregation against the wall. “Our master deserves only respect!”

Tina can’t help but laugh at him. He always was a spineless creature and to see him fail to grow one was just comical. “Your master is as fickle as an infant who has lost its favourite toy. What’s to be respected about that?”

Her comment earns her a forceful slap across the face by a sudden invisible force. Her head pivots to the opposite side by the blow of it. Shaking her hair out of her face, she tastes blood and feels the bruising start to sting beneath her skin. “See?” She turns back to Abernathy whose surprise indicates he hadn’t been the culprit. “Just a little tantrum.”

Grindelwald is facing her now, his expression impassive, but with his hands clenched into fists. He ought to have heard worse insults in his time, but none so privy to his relationship with Albus Dumbledore. Tina knew little, but enough to burrow her way under his skin. To make him squirm.

Considering how notoriously blasé most would expect him to be, Grindelwald is still, despite his unflappable bravado, only human. As vulnerable and as broken as the rest of humanity.

Tina glances down at Newt, face down at Grindelwald’s feet. He hadn’t moved or made a sound in the last couple of minutes. But it’s the stillness of his back, no longer rising or falling with shallow breaths, that alarms her.

_No..._

“Newt?” She calls out to him. “Newt, can you hear me?!”

“I doubt it,” Grindelwald nudges Newt’s ribs with his steel-toed boot.

“Don’t touch him!” She growls. What moments ago had been a collected indifference was now blown to the wind and replaced by overwhelming fear for her husband’s life. The rage simmers beside it, threatening to explode.

If only she had use of her hands. Her wand would’ve been better but she was particularly skilled in wandless magic and she need only summon what strength she has left within her to cover the room in a blinding mist. It would last mere moments, but it would be enough to distract the others long enough to make their escape.

Unfortunately, Grindelwald’s time as Graves had taught him some very useful things about the American Aurors and their skill sets, to Tina’s detriment. As such, her hands were now clamped within two steel spheres, enclosed tight around her fists. She could feel the skin of her knuckles scraping against the metal.

 _Where in the world is Queenie?_ She wonders desperately, grappling with her restraints, her body crying out to get to Newt. He had to be okay, he just had to be alive.

The alternative refuses to cross her mind.

“Sir, we found the Legilimens,” announces a tall, boorish wizard from the other side of the threshold.

Grindelwald grins, several followers hiss, their sounds of displeasure filter toward Tina’s eras and sends a chill down her back.

“Bring her in,” their master commands. “I want her to watch her sister die slowly.”

The hope that Queenie had managed to escape came tumbling down like an anvil on Tina’s heart. It crushes it when she sees her baby sister enter, eye swollen and jaw slashed, blood trickling down her neck onto the dainty lace of her dress.

It reminds Tina of another time when they were children and Queenie had fallen on the concrete sidewalk as they played hopscotch together one spring afternoon. Her floral frock had torn at the hem, bloodied and in tatters. Their father had soothed her wounds as Tina helped their mother mend the dress. It had been a favourite.

 _If only they were here now,_ Tina sighs, wishing she had their strength enough to save her sister and husband. But no matter how hard she resisted the enchantment gluing her to the spot, it would not give an inch.

She glances back down at Newt who still hadn’t moved.

 _He’s alive_ , Queenie assures her. _I can still hear him._

Of course, he is. Dumbledore’s enchantment would ensure Newt lived until, that is, Tina is killed.

They had become the knot in the tightrope between two men who are playing an endless match of tug of war.

And the war only seems to be getting worse by the minute.

“Tina, my dear.”

She looks up to glare at the man now close enough to touch her.

“Do you remember the torment? Does your body feel the pain still?” It’s not really a question, merely an attempt to trigger the memories she has locked away. “Does your heart?”

Her eyes darken in response to that. The meaning behind his words are intended to hurt her most of all. To remind her not of the agony, but of what he had taken from her that night. It’s an indication of what more he will take from her yet.

 _You won’t die, Teenie_ , Queenie breathes into her mind. _You and Newt will get out of here alive. I promise you._

Grindelwald chuckles and as if by instinct, the rest of the room erupts in tandem. It didn’t seem to matter if they knew or not what was so amusing, only that their leader did.

“Oh, they will die, Queenie...” he approaches her, his thumb presses into the severed skin of her chin. “They will die... just a little.” He smirks and instructs two of his men to pick Newt up off the stone floor. “We can’t let him miss the show now, can we?” He steps away from Queenie and returns to her sister’s side and leans down toward her.

Tina instinctively recoils, shifting as far away from him as possible.

“It’s going to be-“

“Kill me instead,” interrupts Queenie. “I betrayed you. Tina was never part of the Alliance. I was. I killed Rosier and sold your secrets to the Ministry. They know where you are and they know what you’re planning.”

Abernathy steps forward once again, his features distorted in a tight grimace. “She’s bluffing!”

Grindelwald paces for a moment, considering all that had been laid out before him. True, Queenie could be bluffing and the authorities knew nothing. However, that small sliver of a chance that she wasn’t and they did, could not be risked.

“Then there’s no punishment more fitting than to watch your sister die,” he smirks wickedly.

He lifts his arm, heaving the weight of his next spell upwards, channeling it into the elder of his wand, weaving around the knots until the tip hums with a iridescent hue that erupts from the wand in a smouldering jet of violet flame. It coils through the air in a serpentine manner towards Tina.

She won’t be able to recall how it transpired when the moment passes, but Tina, frozen in place, watches her baby sister disarm the men restraining her and diving in front of her, placing her body between Tina and the flaming dragon widening it’s jaws as it prowls its quarry.

In an instant, in a flash, the room is bathed in a blinding light that burns every pair of eyes present.

The curse misses Tina altogether and Queenie absorbs the full force of its power, the flames searing into the skin of her chest.

She gasps, her spine arches inwards, and she gives her last breath to the words, “I love you, Tina.”

Her body falls limp to the floor beside Newt, and Tina is left alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did Queenie survive? Let me know what you think!


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (warning: injury detail in latter portion of this chapter)

It starts with a whisper, a rumble beneath the mountain. She feels it vibrate against the soles of her shoes, the blood pooling there babbles, droplets bouncing off the stone. The body from whom the blood had come did not move despite the tremble in the earth.

Tina’s chest constricts with the silent sobs wracking her body. No sound escapes her mouth save for the choked cries for her baby sister.

“Queenie...” she manages through her struggle to breathe.

Grindelwald, as poker-faced as ever, approaches the blonde as two followers pull Newt up from beside her.

He had reached for her hand, to feel some sign of life, however faint, to quell Tina’s distress. He couldn’t lift his head to look up at her, the pain from the Cruciatus Curse still stinging at his nerve endings. As such, he couldn’t see her, but he could feel the shock cycling through her body, stabbing at her heart. It hurts him all the more to know he is helpless as he’s lifted from the floor. When he sees her grief-stricken expression gaping down at the body of her sister, his entire being aches to reach her, to take her from this place and from this pain.

She’d suffered enough.

Newt is pulled to the side, held upright by the same charm that likely kept Tina fused to her seat. He watches as Grindelwald toes Queenie’s body, pushing it over onto her back.

Tina would have gasped if she had any breath left in her. The sight is the brutal gust of wind that shoves her over the teetering precipice.

Queenie lay there, limp and lifeless with skin as white as a ghost, and as cold as one too. The lace at her bodice had all but disintegrated or melted into the skin beneath. Her torso was blackened with a sooty char and several thin tendrils of an indigo hue branched out along her arms and over her throat, burrowing into the pale flesh.

Tina blinks away the tears obstructing her vision and its then, with a clear view of her sister, that she catches one of the tentacle-like markings stretch out farther, reaching for Queenie’s jaw, sliding over the bone.

“Queenie?!” She yells suddenly, “Queenie, can you hear me?!” She ignores the laughter surrounding her, her mind racing.

From what Tina remembered from her schooling days and the Auror training that followed, a curse such as the one Grindelwald had just performed would leave traces on or within the victim. The ones crawling over Queenie’s skin are not unlike the echoes of the violent spells Tina had seen her colleagues endure in the field…

And survive...

The growth of the markings she could see was an indication that the spell is still in effect. And as such, Queenie would have to be alive for the magic to last.

“She’s alive, Newt!” Tina informs her husband with a sudden rush of air, heedless of what it meant to announce such a thing whilst they are still being held captive.

“So it would seem,” muses Grindelwald, peering down at Queenie, his boot continues to nudge at her ribs. Curiosity and confusion flood his features, wondering as to why his ordinarily fatal spell work didn’t have the desired effect. This traitor ought to be dead and gone by now, and yet, her body was visibly resisting the clutches of his magic.

Tina lurches forward, “don’t touch her!” Her bite is riddled with disgust for the wizard before her, unafraid of what wrath it may provoke. After all, he’d already tortured herself and Newt within an inch of their lives, and Queenie is not far from it - what more could he do to her, to them?

He removes his foot and slowly turns to Tina. “Oh Tina... if she isn’t gone now, she will be very soon.”

He is right and they need to get her to a healer immediately.

“And you, my dear,” he leans down to be parallel with her eyes, his gloved hand latching onto her jaw like a vice, thumbs squeezing the bone. “You will meet her there.”

Tina glares at him, her expression defiant.

Newt resists against his invisible restraints harder, unable to stomach the sight of this monster touching his wife.

Sensing this, Grindelwald grins and moves his hand to the back of Tina’s head, yanking on the tussled curls at her neck, pulling hard on her scalp.

She grunts in response but shows no indication of pain. She refuses to give him the satisfaction.

“This won’t hurt Dumbledore nearly as much as you think it will,” her eyes narrow, her tone daring.

“Tina...” warns Newt from the side-lines.

She ignores him. “He might care for Newt, but Dumbledore is a pragmatist,” she explains. “If it’s for the greater good, Newt is as expendable as anyone else.” The truth of her words is infuriating to her - over the years, she had come to care very little for the man Dumbledore had proven himself to be. A great wizard does not a great man make. Still, this was not about her opinion of the man, rather Grindelwald’s intimate knowledge that would lead him to believe what she is saying.

“He won’t hesitate to sacrifice him if the push comes to shove. I suspect you already know that.” Of course, he's smart enough to know what she is doing but is he bitter enough to resist the bait anyway.

Newt, realising what Tina is doing, pipes up. “We have given the resistance enough intel on your Alliance to manage without us. The ministries of the world are sharing it as we speak. You’ll gain nothing from killing us.” This was not entirely true, but Tina’s tactic is to stall, and it would have to be a team effort if they are going to make it out of this alive.

“But I won’t lose anything, either,” Grindelwald counters, his heels pressed up against Queenie’s still frozen body. It would take only a single step backwards, a stumble to distract him enough for the enchantment keeping them in place to subside.

“Won’t you? Are you sure about that?”

“Tina, enough!” Stalling is one thing but playing with fire is an altogether more deadly matter. His wife always did have trouble knowing when to stop and he’s imploring her to listen.

“Do enlighten this poor ignorant fool, Tina,” he asks in an eerily gentle voice, his hand clasped behind him, teetering around Queenie mindlessly.

“Credence,” says Tina.

He halts.

“You need him.”

He nods. True enough. “And I shall have him again,” it sounds less like an assurance than it does wishful thinking. “He will return.”

Tina scoffs. “Before or after he learns you killed his only true protectors? The only people in the world he can trust.” The boy may not be able to find his own family, but he will always have one with them. It had been such since that first time in New York, down in the subway platform where he huddled down beside the tracks, calmed momentarily by the soothing presence that was Newt’s comfort.

“Don’t you remember who it was that led you to the Obscurus in New York all those years ago? Who first came into contact with Credence?” Tina reminds him.

Newts adds, “Credence knows Tina and I. And he knows that we would never hurt or use him.”

“Kill us and you’d better start waving the white flag,” continues Tina. “it’s the only way you’ll get out of this alive.”

Grindelwald nods, considering the depth of their words, weighing his options but coming to a standstill. “Brave words, dear. When I can so easily take from you again.”

Newt’s heart stops. Tina blinks. “I don’t see what else you could take. There’s nothing left.”

He throws his head back and the laughter that swallows the room is almost maniacal. “Look again.” Suddenly, his hand juts out and his wrist flicks upwards, pulling Tina up and out of her seat, suspended in the air, her feet hovering inches above the ground.

Tina feels her spine lock, the vertebrae fusing together to keep her stiff and immobile. Her chest feels like a massive weight is pressing against it, suffocating her.

She watches warily as Grindelwald approaches, his hand raised towards her midriff. Over his head, she can see her husband continue his attempts to break free. His face reddened and the veins in his forehead protrude from his skin from the effort he was making to reach her.

She wishes he would stop trying. He is already so weak.

“Get away from her!” He bellows, a low growl in his throat.

Grindelwald ignores Newt’s voice in favour of his own. “You have much more to lose than you know, Tina.” His hand hovers over her abdomen and she can feel the faintest amount of contact against her clothing. She wishes she could recoil from his rancid, albeit subtle, touch.

He couldn’t possibly know. Not before her. All the magic in the world could not tell him that which had barely come into being. He is simply trying to frighten her, trigger the memory of what he had already taken with the threat he may yet do it again.

But the threat isn’t empty. It’s precisely what he plans to do; what Queenie had prevented mere moments ago.

“Then what are you waiting for?” Tina whispers, her voice feeling as crushed as her lungs. “Get on with it already.”

His head tilts. “Are you so eager to die, Tina?”

Silence is the only answer he receives.

Newt is crying, calling for her, desperate to break free, his heart breaking to hear the resignation in Tina’s voice. He longs he could hear her thoughts, wishes to know that whatever she said is not how she feels.

For a few moments more, Newt’s futile efforts are the only sound hitting the stone around them. Until Grindelwald orders his followers to leave the room.

Although he doesn’t verbally question this command, Abernathy is naturally the only one to hesitate. Grindelwald’s glare is the encouragement he needs to obey, slamming the door shut behind him.

With Newt and Tina still suspended above the ground, hung like ragdolls but as stiff as wooden puppets, Grindelwald observes the pair of them as though they are subjects to be gawked at.

“You have lost so much,” he begins, addressed to the both of them. “Given so much to protect _them_.” There’s an obvious intonation in the way he refers to the non-magical world, as if speaking of them, acknowledging their existence, was an insult to his tongue. “They don’t deserve your protection.”

“They have as much a right to live as we do.” The couple’s voices are lost in each other’s, but they are of the same mind.

“Yet they would condemn us. Hunt us down and wipe us out; erase our very existence.”

Tina narrows her eyes. “You are no better,” she points out in a low voice.

“Do unto others, Tina,” he responds with a shrug, a demure, mounted excuse.

The couple would laugh at him if they had the energy. He vilifies the muggles and then proceeds to quote their scripture. The hypocrisy is so tangible they could almost smell it in the air, feel it on their skin. It makes the same skin crawl and their spines almost shiver despite the tight shackles encasing them.

Tina feels a migraine threatening. The purplish colour of Grindelwald’s spell had been impossibly neon. An unwelcome distraction from everything else. The blood, the countless glaring eyes, the noise. It wasn’t the New York noise - a familiar lull of construction work and insistent shouting she’d become accustomed to since infancy. Here, it’s the constant buzz of something foul, something deadly, relentless at her ear. It’s sadistic laughter out of synch with Grindelwald’s punchlines. It’s the shrill hum of an Unforgivable Curse waiting to be cast. And it’s the unbearable silence and stillness of death. It swarms now around Queenie’s body, closer to the end with every passing second.

The pain in Tina’s head only increases with it. She squeezes her eyes against the darkness and does not say anything else, short of any retort.

It used to be different. It used to be in her nature.

She can’t look at Newt. His desperate eyes are much too frightened. But she can see him behind Grindelwald, squirming, his resolve stronger than her own.

Her father once told her that hope, so delicate yet powerful, was a very dangerous thing to lose. He’d also promised her that neither he nor their mother would die, so she’d taken much of his wisdom with a grain of salt.

Hope, however, he had been right about. Hope is the pillar upon which all conviction is built. And Tina could feel her own crumbling as she and Newt hung there in the air, feeble and helpless, entirely at the mercy of a merciless fiend.

Much of what little they had is now lost to them.

Then, all of a sudden at the corner of her peripheral, behind Newt and out of the shadowed corner, appears two thin strands of an almost transparent ribbon. They float aimlessly around them, hovering just below the curved, rocky ceiling. They filter lower and around the makeshift beams and furnishings, glowing more brightly as they dance with the molecules in the air.

With the movement of his head, Tina can tell that Newt notices them as well, but Grindelwald did not appear to see them. He catches the couple’s eyes following something and he follows their gaze with a confusion he doesn’t often feel.

“What are you staring at?” He demands, unsettled.

Neither of them replies, transfixed with the dancing ribbons of light. They feel themselves become hypnotised, sinking into a pleasant state of serenity and it doesn’t seem to matter that their sight becomes blurry as they drift deeper and deeper still.

“It’s beautiful...” Tina exhales in a dreamy tone.

“What do you see?!” Yells Grindelwald.

Newt’s voice earns a soft laughter, his eyes glazed over with a far off and distant stare. He had joined Tina in their moment of quiet. Their captor seems to have disappeared, the room too. All that is left is colour and sound, so pure and soothing they could only attribute the feeling to one thing: love and the peace that it could bring.

“Answer me!” Grindelwald’s frustration is eclipsed by a sudden commotion coming from outside the room.

There’s shouting, crashes and explosions, echoing from the farthest point in the mountain. It could only mean one thing.

They had been found...

In this momentary loss of concentration, his prisoners fall to their knees as his immobilisation charm comes undone.

Tina is the first to recover from the hard fall, and with blood trailing down from her injured knees and palms, she gets to her feet. The singing from the mysterious ribbons of light continues to weave around her ears. Her eyes are cloudy, almost opaque and Grindelwald wonders if she has gone blind.

He is not as quick as his reputation claims him to be, and when Tina’s hand points toward him and her voice utters “Accio,” his wand is being snatched out of his too-loose grasp before he has a chance to think.

He stumbles backwards towards Newt who had found his footing as well, standing tall with a blueish-green cocoon hanging from his finger. His eyes too had glossed over with a white fog that matches his wife’s.

Grindelwald, caught between them, wandless and nowhere to run, summons a gilded fire dragon from the nearest hearth in a frenzied panic to protect himself. His arms lift the full strain of his magic, imploring it to remember how it felt to be used without the aid of the Elder Wand, now clutched in Tina’s bloody hand.

It erupts from the kindling, moving in time with its master’s motions, burning brighter and hotter as it grows in size.

It’s eyes are individual blue flames directed at Tina.

It points its tail and pushes itself from the logs to the very witch.

She continues to stare at Grindelwald with the vacant though ominous glower, paying the animated flames no mind.

Newt, as hypnotised as his wife, raises his hand and flicks out his fingers, releasing the cocoon into the Swooping Evil that had saved them twice before.

It doesn’t need direction, his hunger guiding him towards the nearest source of food.

A short flight lands his wings around Grindelwald’s shoulders, his long, ridged tongue scrapes along the wizard’s scalp, tasting the brains within.

He scrambles to shake the creature off, growling in an inhuman voice.

The fire dragon, lost without its master, extinguishes it’s flames a mere metre from its quarry.

Swooping Evil manages to sink his fangs into Grindelwald’s right ear, tearing at the cartilage and ripping it away from his head.

He roars in pain, hands scratching at the winged beast’s tail.

“Confelar!” Calls a voice from the entrance.

It’s followed by a thunderous raid of footsteps, the room flooding with Aurors of British, North American and Brazilian forces. Some beaten, bruised and battered but still standing, valiant and prepared to die for the mission.

Theseus pushes through to the front, followed closely by Graves and Isaura, their wands aloft and pointed at Grindelwald.

“It’s over,” Theseus declares. “Surrender and you won’t be harmed.”

Graves has to hold back his tongue and instead focusses his sights on Tina who had not turned to look at them. Newt hadn’t moved either, standing still, expression impassive. _What the hell are they doing?_

“Ah! Mister Scamander, Percy,” Grindelwald jeers at the two men, his ear hanging off by the lobe and the Swooping Evil recoiling back into his cocoon in Newt’s hand, frightened by the disturbance. “So wonderful you could join us.”

Isaura steps in front of Theseus. “Gellert Grindelwald. For crimes against your fellow wizards, you will be detained this day and taken to a secure location to await counsel and sentencing.” Her accent is thick, but her voice assured.

Grindelwald reaches for what remained of his ear, winces and yanks it away from his head, throwing it into the fire. “Well, you see, Miss Xavier,” he begins, stepping farther and farther away from the approaching Aurors. “That doesn’t quite suit my plans.”

“How many times can you escape before you realise we will always catch you?” Graves interjects, his tone is deep and littered with loathing. His dark glare only reinforces the hatred he is feeling.

“As many as it takes until I’ve completed my mission, dearest Percy.”

Graves scoffs. “There ain’t enough of your followers left to help you with that.” If the catastrophic commotion from moments ago had been any indication, most of the acolytes in attendance had just been killed.

A smirk spreads across Grindelwald’s face. “There are always more.”

Theseus, still on his guard and closing in on the wizard, noticed that he had been clenching his fingers several times since they’d burst through the door. His hand seemed to be directed toward Tina who, Theseus now sees, is holding the Elder Wand.

To his eye, she doesn’t seem to be there in the moment enough to fight against his summons. So how was it still in her hand?

He looks to his brother, wondering if perhaps he had been the one to counter Grindelwald’s silent _Accio_ , but no. He too seems elsewhere.

“More rare, unspoiled souls to fight for what is rightfully ours.” Another flick of his wrist and another attempt falling short. “We are legion, and we _will_ triumph.” He feels the heel of his boot touch the edge of the mantle.

The Aurors in front race closer to him, realising just what he is doing.

“Pare! Não se mexa!” One of the natives commands as they surround him.

Grindelwald steps backwards into the gaping fireplace, the tails of his cloak catching fire that he does not appear to feel. His eyes narrow and his mouth quivers, teeth tensing behind them. His voice deepens to an octave that drowns in menace and rage. “I will have such revenges on you.”

And in an instant, a blink, it’s with a swift turn of his coat and a gust of white-hot air and black smoke, he is gone.

The Aurors send blasts at him, crackling against the suffocating cloud of emptiness. When it clears, it’s as though nothing and no one had ever inhabited it.

They stand around aimlessly for a few overlong seconds, consumed with failure and defeat.

Graves laments the most, cursing and swearing out his anger and frustration.

Theseus turns to his brother who seems to be coming down from whatever high he had been caught up in. “Newt!” He exclaims, his hands grasping his shoulders then his face. “Are you all right, little brother?” His eyes scan over his form, blood oozing from several slashes across his body.

Newt’s eyes focus on his brother’s for a moment before they ultimately start searching for Tina.

He finds her, crouching over her sister with Graves at her side, his arm around her shoulders. When Newt approaches her, the older man backs off and joins Theseus.

“Tina...” Newt whispers tentatively.

She doesn’t look at him, but she acknowledges his presence by squeezing the hand he’d placed on her arm. “We have to get her to a healer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Tina has the Elder Wand and Grindelwald has escaped! Thoughts? Fears? Let me know!


	29. Chapter 29

If Theseus had a sickle for each time his little brother followed the rules, he’d be destitute and in the gutter by the time Newt could walk. As such, he’d only ever known him to be resistant and stubborn to a fault. Ordinarily that fault was harmless, simply minor inconveniences that could be forgiven and forgotten. But there comes the occasional, albeit surprisingly infrequent, moments in which Theseus feels himself age and stress himself into a frenzy.

Now, in the Amazonian impromptu medical facility, the Auror swears he caught a grey patch of hair form at the crown of scalp while his wilful and unnecessarily difficult brother dismisses the healers crowded around him for a third time.

“I’m quite all right, really. Nothing to fuss over,” he assures them, attempting to mask his frustration.

“Newt, let them work,” Theseus urges pointedly with a stern look. “The sooner they’ve cleared you, the sooner you can see Tina.”

Newt sighs, “she needs me.”

“You mean that you need her,” smirks Theseus.

The responsive glare is not backed up with the customary denial but instead glazed over with a cloud of deep sadness and a desperate longing. Of course, he needs her. Needs to know that she’s all right, to know also that he is too and that he will be by her side no matter what comes next.

Theseus had just returned from inquiring about Queenie’s progress and given the frown on his face when he’d walked back through the flaps in the tent, Newt knew that she hadn’t made any since arrival.

He feels his heart in his stomach and he isn’t certain whether it’s from his own fear or Tina’s.

Sensing Newt needs a distraction whilst the healers tend to his wounds, Theseus summons his case from under the cot. “Here,” he begins, unlatching the locks and cranking open the lid. “They’ve been eager to see their mummy.”

The round glittering blue eyes are what Newt sees first pop out of the case in his brother’s arms. It’s followed by tiny green twigs curving over the rim. His favourite Demiguise and Bowtruckle clamour over to his side in an instant, curling up against his side.

Newt holds back a soft chuckle that would still be too harsh for his sore and tender body. “Why hello there,” he greets them cheerfully instead. “Have you been taking good care of each other down there?”

Dougal purrs deeply in reply, curling closer to Newt with an impossibly gentle touch.

“Of course, you have. I never doubted you, Dougal.”

Pickett chirps what sounds to be a mixture of a reprimand and concern in equal measure. From where he’s standing, Theseus can see the thin stem-like arms jut out against what could only be described as hips. He chuckles to himself, shaking his head. _Newt and his beasts._

“Well, Pick, you see Tina and I ran into a spot of bother-”

He’s interrupted with an even louder, more boisterous squeak which earns the tiny creature a look of shock from his personal tree. “Language, Pick! We don’t resort to name-calling now do we?”

The Bowtruckle seems to huff in exasperation, chirps and squawks replaced with a stubborn silence.

Newt can’t help but laugh, his ribs won’t thank him later. “It’s nice to see your sulkiness hasn’t improved.”

After a few minutes more of wand waving and dittany pouring, the chief healer informs him that she will return with a phial of fast-acting bone-growth remedy. Newt’s nose and tongue recoil at the impending disgust of it.

Once the tent had cleared, Theseus settles down into the chair beside the cot. “Is he always so irritable?” He asks, gesturing to the stick now weaving a nest out of Newt’s hair.

Newt nods. “He’s worse with Tina. To him, she’s an interloper. Even after all these years, he hasn’t warmed up to her. I’ve tried to work on sharing with him. Alas...”

“Say no more!” Theseus jeers.

“This one though,” adds Newt, stroking the sleeping Dougal’s fur. “He has become Tina’s shadow.”

The brothers enjoy watching the lid of the case pop up and down every few seconds for some time more. “Nifflers?” Theseus asks.

“Nifflers.” Newt confirms with an exasperated, though endeared, roll of his eyes.

It’s an amusement that lasts for a few moments more until Theseus shifts in his chair to face his brother. “Newt...”

He doesn’t look at him but cranes his head to the side to show that he’s listening beneath the hair he so often hides behind. The tone is a familiar one and it tends to precede a heavy topic of conversation. Something he isn’t yet entirely comfortable sharing with his brother. Although they’d come far in the past few years since Paris, there is still quite a way to go on that front.

“We have to talk about what you, Tina and her sister are going to do now that Grindelwald will likely want you killed.” It’s blunt, to the point and entirely without tact. _Typical Theseus_ , Newt scoffs inwardly.

He sighs, shifting on the rickety cot, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “Not now, Theseus.”

“Newt, this is important.”

“It can wait a while longer.”

Theseus slams down the cup he’d been drinking from onto the table. Newt would jump if he hadn’t expected it. “It can’t and quite frankly, your wife possibly has the biggest target on her back.” This is perhaps the frankest of all, void of any sweetened coating to soften the harsh reality of it all. “She is the new master of the Elder Wand. Or did you forget that little detail?”

Pushing himself the rest of the way into a seated position, Newt strains his weakened muscles in his frustration. If he feels pain there later, he’s blaming Theseus for that one. He turns to him and levels with him. “Quite frankly, brother... I’d thank you to stop implying that Tina’s safety is not my top priority.” What is the most irritating of all is that Theseus knows Newt will do whatever it takes to protect Tina and to pressure this upon him so soon after their escape is to doubt that he would tend to the matter at all. Of course, he will. But there’s a time and a place for it and it’s certainly not when his wife is hanging on her sister’s every laboured breath.

Nevertheless, Theseus does not relent. “Then act like it. We _must_ discuss this to make preparations as soon as possible.”

It’s not that Newt doesn’t understand his brother’s insistence. He knows he cares for him just as much as Tina cares for Queenie and there was very little time to waste in this regard. He knows that, of course he does. But Theseus must stop, breathe and take a moment to understand that they had endured an ordeal that would send the average witch or wizard spiralling into a dark hole from which there is no escape.

Newt, Tina and Queenie, however, are unfortunately accustomed to this life; this danger. They will recover but they too need a small respite from the madness.

It’s the fear for his remaining family that obscures Theseus’s own intimate knowledge of the same constant danger, with which he too is familiar.

“I won’t make any decisions without her present. This involves her and her sister and I refuse to decide for her,” explains Newt with a firm tone that tells Theseus that this is non-negotiable, and he would have to be patient in the meanwhile. “So, you might as well wait until we’re both ready to hear it.”

Before Theseus can present his next argument, sunlight filters into the tent as the flaps are pulled open.

“Finally!” rejoices the patient with a clear undertone of impatience.

The healer glowers at him, clearing her throat as she hands him a small bottle of some viscous black liquid.

Newt gives a nervous laugh and uncorks the bottle with a pop. “So sorry...” and downs the contents in one gulp, hoping it doesn’t have a chance to violate his taste buds. “Right then!” He wastes no time between setting down the empty container, manoeuvring Dougal from his lap into his brother’s and jumping out of bed.

The sharp tug on his spine and connecting nerves is an immediate regret at having overestimated his body’s recovery.

Theseus groans, his arms outstretched holding a now invisible Demiguise. “I suppose it’s pointless to tell you to get back into bed?”

“You’re learning.” Newt nods, reaching for his wand and transfiguring into trousers and a shirt. His shoulder screams when he lifts his arm to slip into the conjured sleeve. He can’t imagine how much worse this would be without magic. “I’m going to see my wife and Merlin help anyone who tries to stop me.”

With that, he strides over to the entrance of the tent and leaves his brother behind with a case of magical creatures to babysit.

Newt walks out into an expansive clearing in the jungle. Trees towering into the cloudless sky do little to block out the searing heat from the mid-afternoon Sun. The tent must have been enchanted with a cooling charm because out in the open, the stifling humidity is robbing him of his breath.

Already sweating, he glances around at the several other tents, some smaller, one larger than the one he’d woken up in. If it weren’t for his friend Jacob pacing outside the biggest tent, he wouldn’t have known where to look first.

“Jacob!” He bounds over to him much faster than his body would like but the discomfort is masked by the joy in seeing his first real friend in so long.

What had been a troubled, pensive frown is quickly replaced by the widest grin Newt had ever seen on Jacob’s cheerful face. “Newt! Buddy! How are ya?” he asks, pulling the lanky Brit into his bear-like embrace, patting his back. “You don’t look too bad! Those docs really fixed you up good, huh?”

Newt supposes Jacob had been there when he’d been taken to them and he can’t possibly imagine how awful he’d looked upon arrival if his current state is a decided improvement by comparison.

“I’m alive, and happy to be so,” he settles for. “And you? How are you finding owning such a successful franchise?”

A hearty laugh erupts in Jacob’s chest. “I’d hardly call three bakeries in two boroughs a franchise. But thanks, pal.” He slaps his arm once more. Newt tries not to wince. “It was in one piece when I left. Hopefully my managers ain’t too rowdy with each other while I’m gone.”

That rings a rather obnoxious and vulgar bell in Newt’s memory. His last visit to New York City, after seeing Tina of course, he’d met up with Jacob who had been referee to two particularly aggressive men, vying for the top spot as Head Manager. That round of the competition ended in a scattering of muggle coins and several burst bags of flour. Between the magical epicentre of Britain and the wilder regions of the world, Newt seldom witnessed brawls in the muggle world. Naturally he’d been on the receiving end of an overzealous fist or two, but to see two fully grown men wrestle one another to the ground was quite the spectacle to behold.

Jacob hadn’t been quite as amused. It was a wonder he hadn’t sacked them on the spot and Newt finds it curious to discover they’re still working for him. He would voice his query if it were not for the healer who had just exited the tent beside them. Jacob caught her eye and she presses her mouth into a tight line before walking away with her head bowed.

Newt turns to his friend. “You haven’t seen her yet, have you?”

He shakes his head, stuffing his fists into his coat pockets. “Tina’s with her. I uh... I don’t wanna intrude.”

The taller of the two nods, knowing it’s not the real reason but chooses not to press for fear the man might break. “I understand,” he tells him in a soft voice, his hand on his shoulder.

Jacob manages a meek smile and sniffs. “You oughta go see if Tina’s all right. She hasn’t come out in over an hour.”

He has expected as much so it’s not a surprise to hear it. Before he steps into the tent, he turns back to Jacob and says, “my brother will likely need some help with my case from more practiced hands.”

It’s an invitation Jacob is excited to accept. “Say no more!” He can’t wait to reunite with whatever beasts Newt had brought with him this time. Loathe he is to admit it, he even missed the thieving little rascals of the magical ecosystem. He sets off immediately across the meadow but stops in his tracks a few metres from Newt. “Can you... let me know if she wakes up or...”

Newt nods with a smile, “of course, I will.” He knows Jacob probably feels it isn’t his place to wait by Queenie’s bedside and it would feel like some kind of violation on his part. Despite this, and as much as he so desperately wants to see her, he’s afraid it’ll be the last image he has of her. Although her waking into the neon flames toward Grindelwald is not preferable, at least then she had been alive and well.

If only he believed in God. If only he had someone to pray to.

Newt watches as Jacob gathers himself with a tug on his lapel and sets off for the most welcome distraction.

Satisfied his friend and brother would be safe and content for the time being, he swivels around on his heels, digging them into the mossy forest floor and poking his head into the tent in search of his wife.

It’s her Auror-trained senses that alerts her to the sudden presence of her husband. “Newt...” it’s a breathy whisper she can barely form. Her eyes flood at the sight of him, standing up and gazing across at her with such pure relief and adoration.

“Hello, love,” he blinks and in that split-second darkness, his balance wavers when Tina’s body launches into his.

With her arms wrapped around his shoulders, one hand tangled up in his hair and her face buried in his neck, she can finally breathe once more. “I was so worried. I wanted to come to you, but I was too scared... too much of a coward to risk it.” She ignores the disgruntled chirping at her hand.

Newt chuckles against her chest, his hands smoothing out the shirt at her back, squeezing her waist. “You’re not the only one.”

Tina leans back in his arms to look at him, a furrow in her brow.

“Jacob,” he confirms. She nods, understanding as well as he had done moments ago.

Being the same height allows them to face each other directly without effort or strain. The tips of their noses touch for a moment longer until Tina, unable to calm herself, plasters her lips to Newt’s, pulling his face towards her own. She pushes her chest into the kiss and feels Newt’s fingers spread apart against her ribcage.

It’s a single kiss but it’s deep and full. Bodies close enough to mistake each other’s heartbeat for their own.

Newt is the first to break away, but he doesn’t release her. His forehead settles against her’s and takes one of her hands and holds it between them. “I love you, Tina.”

With her eyes closed and her heart a-brim, Tina inhales deeply, peace flowing within her for the first time in weeks. “And I love you.”

They hear an “ahem!” behind them sometime later and it’s then they realise they’re blocking the entrance.

Tina pulls Newt aside so as to let the healer enter. She tuts at them and shakes her head as she passes, approaching the bed.

Newt kisses Tina’s temple as her face reddens in embarrassment. She will never get used to being caught in the act. It’s a surprise to Newt to discover he doesn’t care all that much anymore. With his wife in his arms, he can’t see anyone else anyway. The world fades away in a blur around her.

“Any progress?” Tina interrupts Newt’s inner musings by asking the healer who had just given Queenie another once-over with her wand.

Tina’s face falls when she shakes her head in response.

After a few more adjustments to the medical setup, the healer leaves as promptly as she arrived.

Newt watches Tina closely as she lets go of his hand and returns to her sister’s side, pushing back the blonde curls from her eyes.

“Come on, Queenie. You’re safe now. Time to wake up.”

Her voice is so soft and tender he can barely hear her. It breaks his heart to know it’s because she doesn’t trust her voice not to break. It shatters to realise that she is probably blaming herself for her sister’s condition. At any moment, he is expecting to hear the “that curse was meant for me” or “we should’ve just left when she suggested it. She wouldn’t be in this position if I hadn’t been so selfish. Neither would you. You got hurt because of me - both of you.”

But it does not come.

Still, she feels it all the same.

Newt conjures a stool to sit by her, to rub her back and soothe her sorrow as she clings to her sister.

They say nothing else for some time. Instead they revel in the silence and lean into each other for comfort, for assurance that the other is there, alive and going nowhere.

The light beaming through the gap in the tent darkens and it’s time for the healer to shoo them away for the night. Tina is reluctant but with some gentle coaxing from her husband in the form of his sweet, awkward smile, she relents.

“I’ll be close by, Queenie. If you need me, call. I’ll hear you.” She bends down to kiss her forehead and whispers against her skin, “I’ll always listen.”

She takes Newt’s hand and they walk out into the now moonlit pass. Tina turns her face to the navy sky and inhales the fresh scent of the jungle air. “It’s nice to be out in the open,” she muses. “It feels like forever since we were led into that mountain.”

And forever still since they’d escaped, Newt thinks.

“I gotta talk to Jacob,” announces Tina suddenly. “He has to know he’s welcome and that she’d want him there if she wakes up.”

Newt nudges her arm, kissing her knuckles. “ _When_ she wakes up.” She’s too afraid to hope so he’ll do it for her. “But first, Tina...” he turns his full body towards her, taking her free hand and urging her to look at him. “You have to see a midwife.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the wonderful feedback on the previous chapter! As some of you pointed out, it seems like the end of a narrative and I suppose, in a way, it is. But fret not! For I have much left to tell of this story! Let me know in the comments if you’re still with me and eager for more!


	30. Chapter 30

Tina’s stomach churns at the thought. It wasn’t that she doesn’t want to know, it’s just... no, she definitely doesn’t want to know.

To know is to hope and she’d already felt what it is to lose that hope, those dreams for the future, a life not lived.

She knows that if she were to refuse seeing a midwife, Newt would understand, and he would not force her to do so. In his mind, the memory of his own pain would remind him of what they could yet feel once again. Knowing their luck, it is a very real possibility. Though it’s not his logic Tina worries about, it’s his heart, so big and so full and so eager to have hope again, to have something to cling to in these dark times.

“Worrying means you suffer twice,” is what he’d tell her, what she’d heard so often before and each time finding herself unable to live by it as religiously as he seemed to.

Unlike Newt, it’s in her nature to worry, to stress and to overthink herself into a stupor. The make-up of any pregnancy is to avoid stress at any and all cost. And trying not to do so will inevitably cause her to stress even more. On top of that, the very nature of this second pregnancy would come with its own cautionary measures that will demand much of Tina’s mindfulness and prudence. This alone is the very definition of stress and if she makes it to full-term, she’ll be surprised if her hair hasn’t gone grey.

“You’re worried,” Newt’s voice penetrates her inner-most thoughts.

She looks back at him, his face beginning to come back into focus as her vacant gaze fell away. “Hmm?”

“You’re not sure if it’s the best thing to know,” he explains, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles, his index finger caressing her wedding band.

Tina sighs with a nod. “It’s important to know to be careful, I know. It’s just...” she trails off, her eyes falling to their conjoined hands. “It’s just I can’t go through that again. That loss. A part of me is gone because of it. I can’t get that piece back.” It was lost the moment she’d bled it out onto the cold, hard floor.

“I understand, Tina,” of course, he does. “It’s your decision to make and yours alone. I will support you whatever your choice may be. But...” his eyes drop to where hers had been moments ago.

Tina’s gaze shoots up toward his face, looking, searching for any indication of what may come next. “But what?” she asks, suddenly nervous.

A deep and heavy sigh escapes Newt’s chest. “It won’t be long until it becomes undeniable,” he explains, eyeing her belly. “If my calculations are correct, and if there is something to know, you’ll start to experience symptoms next week, at the earliest.”

And a lot can change in a week, if their most recent one was any indication. They’d have the scars and the frightful memories for years to come. Souvenirs soaked in terror.

Tina exhales her own sigh, the weight of it quite the burden. _What’s another few pounds_. “I guess you’re right.” She inhales once more, filling her lungs up with the courage she needs to take the next step.

With her shoulders tensed, Newt reaches out to stroke her upper arms.

“You don’t have to-”

She cuts him off with her hand. “Might as well get it over with,” she shrugs. The way she sees it, there’s little sense in delaying the inevitable, despite her reluctance. The need to get back to Queenie is also an incentive to contact the nearest available midwife immediately. She starts to turn away from her husband to set off but finds him tugging her back towards him with pleading eyes.

“Tina... I want you to know. How I reacted the first time-”

She shakes her head, caressing his cheek. “It’s okay, Newt.” Her voice is soft, laced with all the tenderness that moment long ago had lacked. Then, she had been all sharp edges and bitterness, overcome with stress and fear at every turn. To be true, the situation wouldn’t be all that different now that they’ve, quite possibly, found themselves in it again. But this time, Tina reminds herself with gratitude, she has Newt by her side and she’s certain he’ll stay there.

His words that follow confirm as much. “No, it’s just... you need to know I won’t be that man again. He was a coward and you deserve better than him. Whatever you decide, whatever your reasons, I will stand by you no matter what.”

Tina smiles, feeling the comfort of his vow embrace her in a warmth she had needed more than anything else in that moment. With her hand still on his cheek, she leans in and presses her lips to his.

It’s slow and soft, instinctive. With her free hand, she can feel his heartbeat through his breastbone, thumping against her palm.

“I trust you,” Tina whispers against his face when she breaks the kiss.

It’s all the assurance Newt needs to know that she believes in him. The trust of a good woman, his Tina, is priceless and once earned, he knows he deserves it.

He reaches up to take her hand against his neck and kisses her there again. “I’ll be right here,” he promises.

Tina nods and bites her lip, with an easy smile to follow it. She steps back and out of Newt’s reach and disapparates up to the school beyond the thrush. Hopefully Isaura could contact a local midwife for her and on such short notice.

Newt wants to go with her, but he’s certain his brother would want to see him as soon as possible, if only to relieve him of his babysitting duties. Theseus has never been one to dawdle or to stop and enjoy the fleeting moments of peace. He is also, unlike his baby brother, rather wary around creatures, magical or otherwise.

Sure enough, the startled chirp from his breast pocket and the rustle of fabric behind him signals Theseus approaches.

“Yes, brother... I’m coming,” Newt groans as he turns to face Theseus.

His eyes miss the Auror altogether and fall onto his friend, Jacob, who follows after him, case in hand. The tightness of his mouth and the deep furrow in his brow makes Newt think he’s fit to bursting with rage.

“What’s happened?” Asks Newt, just knowing there had been a development. Sensing his sudden change in demeanour, Pickett huddles closer to him inside his pocket.

Theseus sighs. “Dumbledore has arrived.”

The name is like a hammer to his skull, a lurch in his stomach. And Newt begins to understand Jacob’s silent though blatant anger. It radiates from him in waves.

“Why?” It’s all he can manage as he bites his tongue.

“Why else? He came for Credence.”

“Where is he?”

“Up at the school. He’s safe.”

“Hidden?” Newt insists, not unreasonably concerned.

Theseus nods.

They hadn’t considered handing the boy over to Dumbledore to begin with, but after all that had come to light regarding his handling of Newt and Tina’s mission, what little trust they might’ve placed in him had been forfeit in an instant.

He had placed Newt’s life above Tina’s and sent them both into Grindelwald’s midst with the blind hope that he wouldn’t figure it out. That it wouldn’t incite a jealous rage that could only result in the death of one or all of them. Dumbledore is lucky Tina had lived, Newt fumes, but her sister is not yet out of the woods he had so carelessly dropped her into, however indirectly.

This would explain Jacob’s fury.

Newt pats the shorter man’s shoulder. “I think Jacob and I ought to have some words with him.”

Theseus nods, understanding. Many years ago, he might’ve tried to stop him. Since then, he’d been a man in love and its only through this he and his brother could relate. “He’s with Graves down at the ravine.”

Neither Jacob nor Newt speak to one another during their trek through the dense forest and down to the water’s edge. There’s tension thick in the air, rivalled only by the sweltering humidity. But it’s not between the two men, rather it’s what propels them towards the person to whom it is directed.

Dumbledore has a lot to answer for.

They see the back of Graves greying black hair at first. He appears to be looking down at the water where Dumbledore is crouched.

“Ahem!” Newt clears his throat to announce their presence, pushing through the thicket and stepping out onto the narrow banks.

“Mister Scamander. Mister Kowalski,” greets Graves, stuffing his hands into his pockets. How he could withstand the tropical temperatures in his usual attire is beyond Jacob who, as ever, marvels at the man’s commitment to keeping up appearances. “Good to see you’ve recovered nicely,” he adds, nodding at Newt. He wants to ask how Tina is, Newt realises, but thankfully refrains.

Newt nods in response but trains his eye on the wizard behind him who hasn’t yet found the common decency to greet them.

Sensing this, Graves steps to the side.

Without turning, Dumbledore says, “Hello Newt, Mister Kowalski. I was wondering how long it would take you to seek me out.” His tone is infuriatingly monotonous in only the way his could be, edged with a false cheeriness that they know he doesn’t feel.

“You came for Credence,” states Newt. It is not a question.

Dumbledore poked at the mossy covered rocks beneath the water. “I came to see my friends.”

“You have come for Credence,” Newt repeats in a harsher tone.

The deep rise and fall of his back tell the three men on the water’s edge that he sighed.

“There’s no place safer for him than with me, at Hogwarts.”

Newt scoffs.

Graves’s eyebrow lifts.

Jacob’s fist clenches.

“You think we’d trust you to leave him in your care? After what you did, what _could’ve_ happened to my wife, what _did_ happen to her sister?” fumes Newt.

“Ah,” Dumbledore nods slowly. “I understand your anger. It’s entirely justified-”

“Justified?!” Jacob interrupts with a roar. “Ya damn right it’s justified!”

Newt nods, pressing his weight down into the soft earth at his feet, grounding the anger bubbling inside him. “We didn’t ask for your permission to feel anger towards you, Dumbledore,”

Dumbledore holds up his hands in defence. “Of course not. But... Newt... can you really and truly say I was in the wrong?”

Jacob thrust himself forward but Newt’s arm jerks in front of him to hold him off. He wishes in that moment that he were more confrontational, because the wizard before him certainly deserves what Jacob surely has in mind. He swallows hard, trying to dislodge the lump gathering in his throat. “You sent two people into the fire and gave only one of them protection from the flames. Did you really expect the other would not get burned?”

“I’m sorry you see it that way, Newt,” he steps up out of the water and onto the banks. “And I’m sorry to you too, Mister Kowalski. I meant neither Tina nor her sister any harm. I could not have predicated Grindelwald would’ve known about the protection charm I placed on Newt.”

Scoffs are heard from all three men. The excuse is pathetic and flat.

“You’re a liar, Dumbledore.” Theseus’s voice approaches, the rustling of giant leaves being pushed aside.

“I beg your pardon, Theseus?” The startled grimace is limp and unimpressive.

“You’re a liar. No one knows Grindelwald better than you. You knew exactly what he would do; how he would feel to know you care about another person - another man.” Dumbledore opens his mouth to interject but Theseus continues, stepping closer. “you painted a bullseye on their backs and you behave as though you hadn’t considered the eventuality of Tina’s death.”

“There are always casualties in war...” his shoulders are itching to shrug nonchalantly but he’s smart enough to know he shouldn’t dare, not with three grown wizards and one irate muggle fuming at him.

“It is not your place to decide who lives and who dies.”

“Tina knew the risk. She made the decision to take it.”

Part of Newt wonders whether, if she were among them, Tina would agree with that. For her sister, for Credence, she would have taken the risk without a second's hesitation. Newt knows that and Graves does too - they know the type of woman Tina is and thats someone with a heart bigger than the world deserves and a reckless need to put herself in harm's way if that means innocent lives are spared. He knows this, but he also knows what Dumbledore is saying is a lie.

Tina did not know the risk. None of them did. Not until it was too late and Queenie was left to pay the price.

Disbelief rises up alongside Newt’s anger as he consciously lets his arm against Jacob drop.

What comes next is no surprise to anyone present, not even Dumbledore, who harbours enough self-awareness to let the blow to his jaw knock him over into the shallow stream.

"You put my friend's lives in danger and you've got the moxie to say they knew!" growls Jacob, his plump face flushed. "Queenie might be dead because of your damn lies!" The second fist flies into a punch.

Neither Newt, Theseus nor Graves attempt to pull the man off the other. They are all in agreement that it had been a long time coming for Dumbledore.

"If you didn't have that magic spell stick to save your ass, you'd be a goner," Jacob spits on the waistcoat of the man below him in the water, his nose bloody and his eye black. Jacob lifts another fist to throw when a sudden commotion comes running through the jungle, freezing his hand in mid-air.

One of the junior healers from Queenie's tent escapes the mass of green, breathless from his sprint to find them.

"What is it, boy?" asks Graves.

"Miss Goldstein," he inhales ragged breaths.

Jacob's grasp on Dumbledore's collar slackens and his back collides with the jagged rocks under him. "Which one?" ask Jacob. "Is it Queenie?"

The young wizard nods. "She's stirring. Come quickly."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... it's been a minute. No apology could suffice but I am back and am as dedicated as ever to complete this story, even if my readers have lost interest during the long delay! I hope not but here you are in any case. Please let me know what you think if you're still around.
> 
> Since I deleted the tumblr, follow me on twitter for progress updates and hmu if you want: bartagnanz


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